74 OMNIVORI. CORVUS. Roox. 
They frequent cultivated districts, and the loftiest trees in 
the immediate vicinity of old country residences, are generally 
chosen for their habitations. There are even many mstances 
of colonies being established in the middle of populous cities 
and towns, where they have been allowed to breed unmo- 
lested. 
Early in the spring, as the season of pairing and the period 
of incubation approach, the rookery exhibits an amusing scene 
of provident industry, which is described in Wuitz’s Natu- 
ral History of Selborne, with the author’s characteristic and 
strong touches. 
During incubation the female bird is assiduously attended 
and fed by the male, whose kind offices she receives with flut- 
tering wings, open beak, and the same interrupted note, that 
must have been generally observed in the young birds. 
Eggs. The eggs of the Rook are four or five in number, of a 
bluish-green colour, blotched with darker stains. After the 
young have taken wing, the old birds sometimes forsake the 
nest-trees, but invariably return to them again in October, at 
which time they are observed occasionally to repair their 
nests. : 
Locality. The Rook is common throughout England, and the greater 
part of Scotland. It is a native of most of the temperate 
European regions, and of some parts of Asia. According to 
Latuam, it is migratory in France and Silesia, and he adds, 
that it is a singular circumstance the Islands of Jersey and 
Guernsey should be without Rooks, particularly when it is 
ascertained that they frequently fly across the channel, from 
this country to France. 
Piate 30. Figure of the natural size. 
General Bill bluish-black, the base, in the adult bird, denuded of 
ig feathers, and covered with a white scurf. Whole plu- 
mage black, glossed with rich tints of blue and violet- 
wick in his history of the Rook; and a curious account of the contentions 
between two colonies of Rooks and Herons, is narrated in HutrcHinson’s 
History of Cumberland. 
