246 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



quit the wood where they roosted as soon as^it 

 was light enough for them to feed, the time varying 

 according to the state of the weather from half-past 

 eight to ten o'clock, the mornings being usually 

 wet and dark. The rooks that had their rookery in 

 the village numbered forty or fifty birds, and these 

 would remain at the village, getting their food in the 

 surrounding fields for the rest of the day* The daws 

 would appear in a body of two or three hundred 

 birds, but after a little while many of them would 

 go on to their own villages further away, leaving 

 about sixty to eighty birds belonging to the village* 

 Last of all the starlings would appear in flocks and 

 continuous streams of birds, often fighting their way 

 against wind and rain, leaving about a couple of 

 hundred or more behind, these being the birds that 

 had settled in the village for the season, and worked 

 in the grass fields in and surrounding it. Rooks 

 and starlings would immediately fall to work, 

 while the daws, the flock breaking up into small 

 parties of three or four, would distribute themselves 

 about the village and perch on the chimney-pots* 

 They would perch and then fly, and for all the rest 

 of the day would be incessantly shifting about from 

 place to place, on the look-out for something to eat, 

 dropping from time to time to snatch up a crust of 

 bread or the core of an apple thrown away by a 

 child in the road, or into a back garden or on to 



