ROOK 
159 
more brown and less green in their general colour. 
When a dozen or more of Rooks' nests are packed 
into a low and accessible tree they are an extremely 
interesting sight, as seen from among them, or 
above. The mass of old and new nests is solid 
enough almost to walk upon, and young corn is 
growing from grains dropped by the birds in the 
leaf-mould of the old, flattened dwellings, while 
each of the trim, new, brown cups has its due pro- 
portion of dappled, glossy eggs, in all sorts of 
different shades and patterns, and the big, shining 
birds are wheeling round the boughs in outraged 
dignity and alarm. Then, later in the season, when 
everything near the nests has got very messy and 
unpleasant, there is the consolation of the solemn, 
dusty-feathered young birds — always with faces 
exactly like somebody one knows. Occasionally- 
a wandering or outcast pair of Rooks may be found 
nesting by themselves. The chief food of the 
Rook is insects injurious to the farmer, but in 
some districts, possibly owing to the succession of 
dry summers since 1893, which have made it diffi- 
cult to bore the hardened earth, they have unfor- 
tunately taken to eating grain as well, or even to 
sucking eggs, in the favourite manner of the 
Carrion Crow. The Carrion Crow is a great 
enemy of their own, from his attacks upon the 
rookeries when there are eggs or nestling birds. 
