.'28 Wild Life in a Southern County 



CHAPTER XV. 



ROOKS RETTRNrNG TO BOOST — VAST FLOCKS — BOOK PARLIAMENT — ■ 

 THE TWO ROOK ARMIES ANT) THEIR ROUTES — ROOK LAWS, TRADI- 

 TIONS, AND ANCIENT HISTORY — 'THROWS' OP TIMBER — THIEVING 

 JACKDAWS. 



As evening approaches, and the rooks begin to wing their 

 way homewards, sometimes a great number of them will 

 alight upon the steep ascent close under the entrenchment 

 on the downs which has been described, and from whence 

 the wood and beech trees where they sleep can be seen. 

 They do not seem so much in search of food, of which pro- 

 bably there is not a great deal to be found in the short, 

 dried-up herbage and hard soil, as to rest here, half-way 

 home from the arable fields. Sometimes they wheel and 

 circle in fantastic flight over the very brow of the down, 

 just above the rampart ; occasionally, in the raw cold days 

 of winter, they perch, moping in disconsolate mood, upon 

 the bare branches of the clumps of trees on the ridge. 



After the nesting time is over and they have got back 

 to their old habits — which during that period are quite 

 reversed — it is a sight to see from hence the long black 

 stream in the air steadily flowing onwards to the wood 

 below. They stretch from here to the roosting-trees, fully 

 a mile and a half — literally as the crow flies ; and ba3k- 

 wards in the opposite direction the line reaches as far as 

 the eye can see. It is safe to estimate that the aerial 



