176 FROM SPRING TO FALL. 



been literally blown all over the place. I had a 

 rough time of it myself, being out in the storm 

 to watch them. It is most amusing to see the 

 birds come flapping along, croaking out their dis- 

 content, which is a very justifiable one ; for, like 

 the man who is watching them, they are coming 

 home very wet and dirty, a most unpleasant state 

 of affairs indeed. Here they come, canting first 

 to one side and then to the other, some of them 

 showing considerable gaps in their wings where 

 flight-feathers have been knocked out, doing their 

 best, poor things, to get to their roosting- trees. 

 Just as they near their shelter, with a roar the 

 gale comes on them, rain and hail with it, and 

 they are blown away in a confused mass, like a 

 lot of loose thistle - down. The diving, darting 

 tactics they then employ to save themselves from 

 coming in contact with the branches of the trees 

 are worth looking at. Some of them, by making 

 long tacking sweeps, only just escape being blown 

 down on the park meadows, and then it is some- 

 thing wonderful to hear their gorbling grunts and 

 grumbles. Do rooks also speak to one another 

 unadvisedly at times, I wonder? If they do so 



