18 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
can laugh at our dupe when we practice it ; nor 
do we afterwards despise our superior cunning and 
feel ashamed as when we slaughter wild birds 
with far-reaching shot which they cannot escape. 
All these corvine birds which the gamekeeper 
pursues so relentlessly, albeit they were before 
him, killing when they killed to better purpose, 
and, let us hope, will exist after him — all these 
must greatly surpass other kinds in sagacity to 
have escaped extermination. In the present con- 
dition of things the jay is perhaps the best off 
on account of his smaller size and less conspicuous 
colouring ; but whether more cunning than the 
crow or magpie or not, in perpetual alertness and 
restless energy, or intensity of life, he is without 
an equal among British birds. And this quality 
forms his chief attraction ; it is more to the mind 
than his lifted crest and bright eyes, his fine vina- 
ceous brown, and the patch of sky blue on his 
wings. One would miss him greatly from the 
woods; some o£ the melody may well be spared 
for the sake of the sudden, brain-piercing, rasping, 
rending scream with which he startles us in our 
solitary forest walks. 
There was no rookery in or near the village, 
but a very large flock of rooks were always to be 
seen feeding and sunning themselves in some level 
meadows near the river. It struck me one day 
