Rooks retvrning to roost. 249 



CHAPTER XV. 



ROOKS RETURNING TO ROOST VAST FLOCKS ROOK 



PARLIAMENT THE TWO ROOK ARMIES AND THEIR 



ROUTES ROOK LAWS, TRADITIONS, AND ANCIENT 



HISTORY ' THROWS ' OF TIMBER THIEVING JACK- 

 DAWS. 



As evening approaches, and the rooks begin to wing 

 their waj' homewards, sometimes a great number of 

 them will alight upon the steep ascent close under 

 the entrenchment on the downs which has been de- 

 scribed, and from whence the wood and beech trees 

 where they sleep can be seen. They do not seem so 

 much in search of food, of which probably there is 

 not a great deal to be found in the short, dried-up 

 herbage and hard soil, as to rest here, half-wa}' home 

 from the arable fields. Sometimes they wheel and 

 circle in fantastic flight over the veiy brow of the 

 down, just above the rampart ; occasionally, in the 

 raw cold days of winter, the}' perch moping in dis- 

 consolate mood upon the bare branches of the clumps 

 of trees on the ridge. 



After the nesting time is over and they have got 

 back to their old habits — which during that period 

 are quite reversed — it is a sight to see from hence 

 the long black stream in the air steadily flowing on- 

 wards to the wood below. The}- stretch from here to 



