VOL. XV.] SOME NOTES ON THE ROOK. 



18 



sitting bird and attack her vigorously. This was generally 

 a signal to all the Rooks in the vicinity to come and join the 

 attack on the helpless victim. I am inclined to think that 

 these aggressors were male birds, as although I spent very 

 many hours watching and photographing the birds (through 



Rook : Male and Female feeding Young. 

 {Photographed by Stanley Crook.) 



a period of four or five nesting seasons working at times from 

 the roof of a house sixty feet high, and on occasions being so 

 numbed with the cold that it was really an effort to release 

 the shutter), I never remember a sitting female (there were 

 five nests in the tree I was " operating " upon) leaving her 

 nest to join in the attack. These attacks on the incubating 

 bird (not confined to one particular f ema'e) always took place 



