THE ROOK. 307 



About two miles to the eastward of this place are the woods of 

 Nostell Priory, where, from time immemorial, the rooks have retired 

 to pass the night. I suspect, by the observations which I have been 

 able to make on the morning and evening transit of these birds, that 

 there is not another roosting- place for, at least, thirty miles to the 

 westward of Nostell Priory. Every morning, from within a few days 

 of the autumnal to about a week before the vernal equinox, the 

 rooks, in congregated thousands upon thousands, fly over this valley 

 in a westerly direction, and return in un diminished numbers to the 

 east, an hour or so before the night sets in. In their morning 

 passage, some stop here; others, in other favourite places, farther 

 and farther on now repairing to the trees for pastime, now resorting 

 to the fields for food, till the declining sun warns those which have 

 gone farthest to the westward, that it is time they should return. 

 They rise in a mass, receiving additions to their numbers from every 

 intervening place, till they reach this neighbourhood in an amazing 

 flock. Sometimes they pass on without stopping, and are joined by 

 those which have spent the day here. At other times they make my 

 park their place of rendezvous, and cover the ground irPvast pro- 

 fusion, or perch upon the surrounding trees. After tarrying here for 

 a certain time, every rook takes wing. They linger in the air for a 

 while, in slow revolving circles, and then they all proceed to Nostell 

 Priory, which is their last resting-place for the night. In their 

 morning and evening passage, the loftiness or lowliness of their 

 flight seems to be regulated by the state of the weather. When it 

 blows a hard gale of wind, they descend the valley with astonishing 

 rapidity, and just skim over the tops of the intervening hills, a few 

 feet above the trees; but, when the sky is calm and clear, they 

 pass through the heavens at a great height, in regular and easy 

 flight. 



Sometimes these birds perform an evolution, which is, in this part 

 of the country, usually called the shooting of the rooks. Farmers 

 tell you that this shooting portends a coming wind. He wno pays 

 attention to the flight of birds has, no doubt, observed this down- 

 ward movement. When rooks have risen to an immense height in 

 the air, so that, in appearance, they are scarcely larger than the lark, 

 they suddenly descend to the ground or to the tops of trees exactly 



