sliire Natural History Journal ' : — " One of the most 

 curious ornithological sights to be witnessed in this 

 neighbourhood is a Rook's parliament, or meeting, which 

 generally (though by no means invariably) takes place in 

 the autumn in one of three special places, about an hour 

 before roosting-time ; in one of these spots, a meadow 

 close to the house at Lilford, we have seen some ten 

 acres so thickly occupied by Rooks, that scarcely a sign 

 of the grass upon which they were assembled was 

 discernible from rising ground at a few hundred yards' 

 distance, whilst great numbers were collected in the 

 adjoining trees, and many plunging headlong from great 

 heights and darting and twisting in all directions ; those 

 upon the ground were comparatively silent, but the 

 occupants of the ' gallery,' if I may so call the trees, 

 were, as is usual in assemblages of another order of 

 bipeds, very vociferous. We have seen many such 

 meetings, but never such a densely packed one as that 

 observed on a certain afternoon in October, and followed, 

 as is generally the case, by a heavy gale. Here is 

 another of the habits of the Rook, which has doubtless 

 been observed by many, but, so far as I know, never 

 satisfactorily accounted for or explained." 



