A ROOKERY IN SPRING 17 



persuade the members of a Rookery to nest anywhere but in their time-honoured 

 clump of trees. 



A farmer on whose land was a long-established Rookery, decided that, 

 owing to the raids which the birds were making upon his newly-sown corn, he 

 would have no more of them, and detailed a man, armed with an ancient though 

 formidable shot-gun, to stand under the trees ; and instructed him to shoot 

 any Rooks that might come within range. 



Day after day the spasmodic bangs of the gun might be heard from the 

 distance ; day by day some unfortunate Rook, braver than the rest, would fall 

 a victim to the shooter's patience ; and day by day the mangled bodies of the 

 dead Rooks, littered about under the trees, increased in numbers. Weeks 

 passied and still the Rooks, hanging about their trees, refused to commence 

 nest-building elsewhere. Occasionally one or two would alight on the famiUar 

 branches, only to pay the full penalty for their temerity, and yet they refused 

 to leave. 



At last, however, the watch below was relaxed, and the Rooks, feeling 

 that the period of waiting was over, commenced the business of nest-building 

 with feverish energy. 



Where one evening there had been not a single new nest, there were, the 

 following morning, the foundations of between fifty and sixty being run up at 

 lightning speed. Little time there was for squabbling or intervals of peaceful 

 rest, so busy were the Rooks on the serious business of home-construction. 



A few days later the man with the gun resumed action. Soon the ground 

 was thickly strewn with the remains of the birds. Caught up in the branches 

 beside some of the nests the bodies of Rooks hung listless. And still the 

 intermittent banging of the gun could be heard. 



At length such terror was instilled into the hearts of the surviving Rooks 

 that they were driven to betake themselves elsewhere, and the man with the 

 gun at last relinquished his position under the silent remains of last year's 

 nests. 



On May 10th of that year it was found that a solitary pair of Rooks had 

 stuck indomitably to the ancestral haunt, and had laid three eggs in a nest 

 surrounded by the deserted homes of dead or fugitive relations. 



But if undisturbed, the Rooks, by the middle of May, would be engaged in 

 feeding their young — ^many of which would be by this time almost fully grown — 

 and might be seen making constant journeys between the Rookery and the 

 feeding-ground . 



When the young Rooks are able to leave the nests and take short flights 

 to the surrounding trees, it is a common practice for the owner of the place 

 to organize a ' Rook-shoot,' when either guns or rifles may be utilized in 

 the process of thinning out the yoimg Rooks. To what degree this may be 

 termed ' sport ' is an open question ; certain it is, however, that it does not 



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