Summer Habits of Rooks. 291 
northwards from the remaining wood passes through 
a belt of well-timbered country. On either side of 
this belt there is much less timber ; so that the rooks 
that desired to build nests beyond the limits of the 
enclosed wood still found in the old places the best 
trees for their purpose. Here may be seen far more 
rookeries than in any other direction. Hardly a 
farmhouse lying near this belt but has got its rookery, 
large or small. Once these rookeries were established, 
an inducement to follow this route would arise in the 
invariable habit of the birds of visiting their nesting- 
trees even when the actual nesting time is past. 
Thirdly, if the inquiry be carried still farther back, 
it is possible that the line taken by the rooks indicates 
the line of the first clearings in very early days. The 
clearing away of trees and underwood, by opening the 
ground and rendering it accessible, must be very 
attractive to birds, and rooks are particularly fond of 
following the plough. Now although the district is 
at present chiefly meadow land, numbers of these 
meadows were originally ploughed fields, of which 
there is evidence in the surface of the fields them- 
selves, where the regular ‘lands’ and furrows are 
distinctly visible. 
One or all of these suggestions may perhaps 
account for the course followed by the rooks. In any 
case it seems natural to look for the reason in the 
trees. The same idea applies to the other stream of 
rooks which leaves the wood for the eastward every 
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