CHAP. VII. | The Fook. 127 
night as well as the day, and it is by no means niggardly in 
exercising its vocal powers. 
“Well do I remember,” he continues, ‘how the little 
mill-worker, of scarcely ten years of age, was struck with 
admiration and almost bewildered with delight at the first 
of this species he had ever heard exhibiting its mimicking 
powers; whereas now I considered this to be neither more 
nor less than the bird’s own natural melody. And if there 
be any change in the delight with which I hear the sedge- 
warbler, although I have now turned the corner of ten times 
six, and have become an old cobbler instead of a juvenile 
factory operative, yet when I hear the little songster, I drink 
in the pleasure with even greater delight than I did in those 
long-past years.” 
The rook, too, is in a measure nocturnal in his habits dur- 
ing a certain term of the year, especially when building his 
nest or when bringing up his progeny. From the time 
when the foundation of the nest has been laid to the end of 
the matrimonial proceedings for the year, and until the last 
chick has left the nest, the rookery is in a state of continual 
caw-cawing from morning till night. As the young brood 
of rooks grow up, their appetites increase, and hence the in- 
cessant labor of their parents in scouring the country for 
worms and grubs to furnish them with their late supper or 
their early morning breakfast. 
“T once,” says Edward, ‘during one of my country ex- 
cursions, slept beside a very large rookery in the woods of 
Froglen. Slept? no, I could not sleep! I never was in the 
midst of such a hideous bedlam of cawings. I positively 
do not believe that a single member of that black fraternity 
slept during the whole of that night. At least I didn’t. If 
the hubbub slackened for a moment, it was only renewed 
with redoubled vehemence and energy. I found the rook- 
ery in the evening in the wildest uproar, and I left it in the 
morning in the same uproarious condition. I took good 
care never to make my bed so near a rookery again. -Still, 
