269 



ON THE NESTING HABITS OF THE ROOK. 



W. GYNGELL, 

 Scarborough. 



The interesting- notes on the nests of Rooks {Corvus fnigilegus) 

 by Mr. E. A. Woodruffe-Peacock in the May issue of this 

 journal tempt me to give my own experiences with this bird's 

 nests. T find from my notebook that I have cHmbed up to 

 and examined fifty-five nests containing eg-gs, besides many 

 more containing young, and also empty nests in Yorkshire, 

 Lancashire, and Southern Counties. These nests were built at 

 heights ranging from those in hawthorn bushes at not more 

 than twelve feet above the ground to those occupying the tops 

 of the tallest forest trees, sixty to seventy feet in height. 



The materials employed, besides the sticks (which seem to 

 be always pulled from living trees at a little distance away from 

 the rookery) are moss, grass, dead leaves, horse dung, large 

 feathers, etc. I have never found a nest containing any wool. 

 The nests vary greatly in size and strength, . and may measure 

 as much as four feet in height by three feet in diameter. These 

 very large nests, the result of several years' work, when built in 

 the strong fork of a tree are so substantial that I have actually 

 sar on one with my whole weight in a tree top during a gale of 

 wind. Others, and these form the majority, are so fragile that 

 they are soon blown to pieces by a stiff breeze, whilst others 

 again are so ill fixed in position that they slip out of the 

 supporting branches and fall bodily to the ground. In the 

 Valley Park, Scarborough, there were about two hundred and 

 fifty nests last summer, and of these only a dozen remained 

 when rebuilding commenced again this spring. 



In this rookery nest-building, properly so called, begins in 

 February, the i8th of that month being the earliest date noted. 

 The birds work at the nests at all hours of the day and until 

 quite dusk in the evening. The cock bird feeding the sitting 

 hen often gives rise to the supposition that there are young in 

 the nest at a very early date. 



Nest-building or repairing, properly so called, I have never 

 seen actually take place in the autumn, when the birds frequentl} 

 assemble at the rookery, poke about the nests and occasionally 

 take sticks into them, sometimes from one nest to another, but 



1904 September i. 



