2190 Birds. 



in the autumn. I suspected that the trunk had become hollow, though externally it 

 exhibited no signs of such decay ; in this, however, I was mistaken. I had many 

 thoughts, and some talk too, about applying the axe ; but resolution always failed me. 

 So the elm stood an ornamental object, from whatever quarter it might be viewed, till 

 a gale of wind in January, two or three years ago, saved me the trouble of all further 

 deliberation, and brought the tree to the ground with a tremendous crash. The trunk 

 and limbs proved perfectly sound, and available as timber ; but every root or fang, 

 with the exception of one of the largest, was dead and decayed up to the surface of 

 the ground. Now, could the rooks have been aware of the unsound and unsafe state 

 of this elm ? I can hardly help thinking that they were, and on that account avoided 

 it. Should it be argued that it is unfair (as logicians teach us) to draw a general 

 conclusion from a particular instance, I may mention that there are several other trees 

 on the premises that are never occupied by rooks' nests, for no other cause, so far as I 

 see, except that they are more or less in a decayed state, as I know them to be. I 

 have alluded above to a late pair of rooks that built apart, and appeared to have been 

 expelled, as it were, from the rest of the community. Something of this sort, I be- 

 lieve, takes place frequently in most rookeries. This season, after the generality of the 

 nests were completed, or nearly so, I was a good deal amused by observing that a pair 

 of rooks had taken up an entirely new position, and commenced building in a horse- 

 chestnut tree opposite to my dressing-room window. These birds seem to work hard- 

 est early in the morning, as Mr. Lawson justly remarks, and good progress accordingly 

 was made with the nest by the time I was getting up. Long before night, however, 

 it was entirely demolished, whether by the lawful owners themselves out of caprice, or 

 by plunderers from a worse motive, I will not pronounce. The next morning, by the 

 same hour, the nest had been begun again, and again disappeared before night. This 

 building up and pulling down was repeated for three or four days in succession ; till 

 at length the patience, I suppose, of the birds was exhausted, and they ceased from 

 all further operations in the chestnut tree : whether they built elsewhere I am unable 

 to say. Kooks make an astonishing litter under their nesting-trees, with the sticks, 

 &c, which they either drop accidentally or designedly discard ; and I think they 

 rarely, if ever, condescend to alight upon the ground in order to pick up a stick which 

 they have accidentally let fall in their passage to the nest. They will carry sticks 

 from a considerable distance. This spring I observed a rook a good height in the 

 air with a stick in its mouth, a good half mile at least from the nearest rookery ; and 

 from its position when I saw it, T conclude it must have brought the burden from a 

 much greater distance. When I speak of rooks beginning to build, I would be un- 

 derstood to mean their actual conveyance of materials for that purpose ; for long be- 

 fore they begin to carry they visit their nesting-trees, and are extremely busy about 

 something, — laying their plans, we may suppose, and making their calculations, like 

 other builders ; and they seem to have a vast deal to say on these occasions, could we 

 but understand their language. Some of the country people here have a notion that 

 rooks make their nests higher or lower in the trees, according to the dryness or wetness 

 of the ensuing summer. This spring, for instance, I was told by a labouring man 

 that the rooks were building high, and that the circumstance prognosticated a dry 

 summer. I confess I have never myself been able to perceive any material difference 

 in this respect, — the great body of them building, as it appears to me, uniformly at 

 about the same altitude. — W. T. Bree ; Allesley Rectory, July 6, 1848. 



Occurrence of the Hoopoe (Upupa Epops) near Sunderland. — Mr. Calvert, of Sun- 



