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NESTING HABITS OF ROOKS. 



J. A. WHELDON, F.L.S. 



As the nesting habits of Rooks are under consideration in 'The 

 Naturalist,' I looked up entries in my old notebooks regarding- 

 them. Under the date i6th February 1881 I found the following- : 

 ' Hooded Crows congregated in large flocks. Rooks building. 

 Several rooks observed pulling branches off trees and carrying 

 them to their nests ; also taking up large tufts of moss and 

 roots of stubble for the same purpose.' This note places the 

 date of commencing to build two days earlier than the earliest 

 noted by Mr. Gyngell, and singularly enough it was made at 

 Scarborough, and probably in the same rooker}^, as I resided 

 then on the South Cliff, at no great distance from the Valley 

 Park, to which he refers. 



On 15th April of the same year I examined a number of 

 rooks' nests at North Otterington, near Northallerton. After 

 several toilsome ascents of the lofty trees in which they were 

 situated, they were all found to contain either young birds or 

 eggs in an advanced stage of incubation. 



A later note made in May states that ' the rooks frequently 

 pull their nests to pieces before commencing to build in earnest, 

 but afterwards the work proceeds very rapidly. The birds fre- 

 quently pair on the nest. The nests are built of sticks and 

 lined with wool, roots, hay, etc. When some nests contain 

 almost fully-fledged young, others may be found containing 

 new-laid eggs.' This latter entry would appear to bear out 

 Mr. Gyng'ell's idea, that large rookeries consist of a congeries 

 of smaller but independent colonies ; or, an alternative supposi- 

 tion, it is possible that the housekeeping arrangements of some 

 of the }'ounger birds were delayed through persecution by their 

 seniors. . 



' In 1881 the more forward of the young birds had left tr.e 

 nests in the second week of May.' ' The following year young 

 rooks were noticed out of the nests on 8th May. It will be 

 observed that wool is mentioned as one of the lining materials 

 used by the North Otterington rooks. I have no reason to 

 doubt the accuracy of this entry, although my memory will not 

 carry far enough back to enable me to guarantee its absolute 

 correctness. I can recollect one nest which had a good deal of 

 string interwoven amongst the other material, and another 

 which contained a portion of a pocket handkerchief. In the 



Naturalist, 



