296 BIRD WATCHING 



I came into it, two dead rooks were lying, and I had 

 also picked up a dead one in the larger roosting- 

 place. The keeper said it had been ' turned out,' 

 which was vague, and then, more definitely, that rooks 

 sometimes died of old age. It seems not impossible, 

 or even improbable, that in these violent whizzings 

 of a great number of rooks together, amongst closely 

 growing trees, and in the gloom of evening fading 

 slowly into night, accidents may, sometimes, occur. 

 The rooks, I should say, in their violent whizzing 

 darts and dashes, shot down, sometimes, to about 

 half the height of the trees, and were, in general, 

 right in amongst them. This wonderful scene of 

 bird excitement, lasted, I should think, about ten 

 minutes, in full action, but grew fainter as the trees 

 became more and more packed with birds, till, at 

 length, all were settled. Every tree held several. 

 On two slender ones — not pines but birches — just in 

 front of me, and but' a step or two off, there must 

 have been more than twenty. The noise and clamour, 

 during the whole time, was tremendous." 



It is not always that rooks dash thus madly to 

 rest. Here — on the very next evening and at the 

 same place — is another type of the home-coming. 



"March ^th. — A little after 5.30, a hooded crow 

 flies into the clump of pines. Whether it stays there 

 for the night, with the rooks, I cannot tell, but it does 

 not seem to me improbable. I have seen single birds 

 of the former species flying amidst large bands of 

 the latter, and they are constantly together in the 

 fields, where they behave, in regard to each other, 

 very much as though they were of the same species. 



" At 6.10, which is later than the first batch of rooks 



