THE ROOK. 
317 
bodies might separate them from the branches. Such was their 
common procedure with unyielding cones, as witnessed with much 
interest from the windows of my friend's house ; some pines, in 
which this ingenious feat was regularly practised, being only a few 
yards distant. The rook being an especial favourite with me on 
account of the benefit it does mankind, I was much gratified to 
learn this proof of its intelligence. This feat raises the species to 
an equality with the grey crow, as evinced by this bird's rising 
into the air with shell-fish, and dropping them on the rocks to 
break them, and renders the rook not unworthy, on the score of 
intellect, of being placed in the same family group with the raven. 
What they do with the cones, has not been ascertained. It would 
seem to me, that unless the scales be so widely open, that the seed 
is ready to drop out, they could hardly reach it, and even then, 
a portion only would be accessible ; the scales themselves could 
only, I conceive, be detached, when partially decomposed ; un- 
fortunately, the proceedings of the birds, subsequent to their 
carrying off the cones, have not been watched.* 
Great meetings of rooks, before the breeding-season commences, 
have been alluded to by authors, some of whom consider that the 
object is to settle preliminaries respecting that important period 
— the correctness of which idea seems probable, though it must 
be stated, that in the middle of October, I have remarked similar 
assemblages. These meetings are sometimes long continued. 
During four weeks in the year 1837- — from January 21st to Feb- 
ruary 17 th — whenever I happened to ride between two and three 
o'clock, in the direction of two rookeries, I always saw, at a place 
intermediate between them, and about a mile distant from each, 
extraordinary numbers, amounting certainly to several thousands ; 
more than I conceive the two rookeries could furnish — a third 
* Mr. Blackwall, in his Researches in Zoology (p. 156), remarks, that “ rooks in 
the autumn frequently bury acorns in the earth, probably with the intention of 
having recourse to them when their wants are more urgent.” Mr. Jesse, too, states 
that these birds “ are known to bury acorns, and, I believe, walnuts also, as I have 
observed them taking ripe walnuts from a tree, and returning to it before they could 
have had time to break them and eat the contents. Indeed, when we consider how 
hard the shell of a walnut is, it is not easy to guess how the rook contrives to break 
them. May they not, by first burying them, soften the shells, and afterwards return 
to feed upon them ? ” (Gleanings in Natural History, 1st series.) 
