258 BIRD WATCHING 



minuteness of detail and so forth, in fact for all short- 

 comings, and then to go on in faith, not in myself, 

 indeed, but in the rooks, believing that they will 

 be interesting, however much I may stand in their 

 way. 



When I speak of the rookery I do not mean the 

 trees where the birds build — unfortunately there are 

 none very near me — but those where they come to 

 roost during the autumn and winter — true rookeries 

 indeed if numbers count for anything. Here, their 

 chosen resting-place is a silent, lonely plantation of tall 

 funereal firs, standing shaggily tangled together, mourn- 

 ful and sombre, making, when the snow has fallen 

 but lightly — before they are covered — a blotch of very 

 ink upon the surrounding white. Who could think, 

 seeing them during the daytime, so sad and aban- 

 doned, so utterly still, tenanted only by a few silent- 

 creeping tits, or some squirrel, whose pertness amidst 

 their gloomy aisles and avenues seems almost an 

 affectation — who could think that each night they 

 were so clothed and mantled with life, that their 

 sadness was all covered up in joy, their silence made 

 a babel of sound? In every one of those dark, 

 swaying, sighing trees, there will be a very crowd 

 of black, noisy, joyous birds, and strange it is that 

 there should be more poetry in all this noise and 

 clamour and bustle than in their sad sombreness, 

 deeply as that speaks to one. The poetry of life is 

 beyond that of death, and when the rooks have gone 

 the dark plantation seems to want its soul. It is 

 Cupid and Psyche, but under dreary, northern skies. 

 Every evening the black, rushing wings come in love 

 and seem to kiss the dark branches, every morn- 



