5104 THE ZooLocist—OctToBEr, 1876. 
this space, and she set to work to hunt it very carefully, alighting 
at each end of this distance every time she arrived at it, perching 
always in the same places—an old rotten branch that lay on the 
ground at one end, and on the top of a large grassy hillock at the 
other; and when so perched, which was only for a second or two, 
she had the most strange appearance, sitting nearly upright, and 
the feathers on the back of the neck and shoulders being puffed up 
to their fullest extent, giving her much the appearance of an owl. 
I imagined this might be done to frighten the pipits. Sometimes, 
very like the kestrel, the cuckoo hovered low over the grass and 
sometimes alighted amongst the roughest parts, walking, or rather 
tumbling, about in the most clumsy manner. It seemed easy to 
know when she was nearest the nests by the louder notes of the 
pipits, and I fancied I could have gone almost straight to them. 
I watched her for some time through a glass, and much regretted 
I could not stay until I had seen an end of the performance. 
Rooks.—Uaving several times lately seen the rooks visiting a 
small plantation some distance from the rookery, and always going 
in a straight line between the two places, I went to try and learn 
the cause, and was not a little surprised to find a number of them 
at the carcase of a horse which had been shot and skinned there, 
and was intended for the dogs. I spoke to the keeper about it, 
and he told me that he had long been aware of the fact of these 
birds feeding their young on carrion when it “came handy.” As 
to the partial migration of this species, I have for years observed 
that they leave the rookery here regularly in the last week of 
August and roost on the trees around the house. They are at that 
time joined by the rooks from another rookery about two miles 
distant, and by numberless jackdaws. At that time all collect 
punctually at 8 p.m. and commence flying around the house: they 
are very noisy all the time, and there are always some whose 
voices, from some cause or other, have become peculiarly broken. 
They often, all at once, settle for a minute or two amongst the top 
branches of the trees, and then all will again rise in a body and 
wheel round the house as before: this is kept up until they go to 
roost. Ona fine quiet night, by going out and making a smart 
noise,—striking a match, for instance,—one of them near you will 
commence a snoring noise, which is answered by some of the 
jackdaws: the snoring is kept up while you are anywhere near, 
and appears to be a sort of alarum, for I have found by going into 
a 
———— eee eh 
