ROOKS 
223 
Future Arrangements. — We are glad to be able to 
announce that in our next number we shall begin a series of 
papers by the Rev. Professor G. Henslovv, M.A., F.R.S., on 
“ Observations for Young Botanists.” 
ROOKS. 
By the late Prebendary Gordon (written in 1881). 
UTUMN with the sound of rooks,” says the Poet 
Laureate; and the observation is just. The only 
birds that seem to penetrate the leaden November 
mist for the purpose of traffic, and are not afraid of 
patrolling a long distance day after day, are the patient, laborious, 
black policemen of the air, who, as food fails them inland, at 
this time of the year make excursions to the sea, and work away 
on the shore in the yielding ooze, often seeming to be so tired 
on the return journey that they can scarcely, after many halts, 
top the last hill and drop into the rookery trees. 
Last Monday, November 7, at 4.30, I saw near Pyle Station, 
South Glamorganshire, a very large camp of rooks, evidently 
at their first halt about a mile from the sand on a green knoll, 
receiving stragglers. About three acres of ground was black 
with them and lively enough ; and they appeared to be sorting 
themselves with military precision (the “ corvoruin exercitus ” of 
Virgil) into two grand squadrons, one for Margam on the west, 
and the other for Tythegston on the north-east, each about 
four miles distant. They were all resting, crops full, and body 
tired : “ fortune could not hurt them, for they had dined.” 
Not long ago I was on some high ground of the South 
Downs, about eighteen miles north of Portsmouth, a little later 
in the day. The light was just failing when a single rook settled 
in a tree near me. A mist came on and I could hardly see, but 
I heard him calling at intervals. In a short time an enormous 
flight of rooks threaded its way up the defiles, and like a swarm 
of black bees covered the tree on which the solitary bird had 
settled, and two more. They were coming as thick as the Greek 
phalanx from the sea shore ; and I could hear them in the dusk 
cawing the way up the staircase of the hills to the remaining 
squadron advancing from the sea : they were hunting together 
by sound, like foxhounds in a thick covert. After a brief halt, 
when the whole line had formed at the halting place, the last 
“ forward march ! ” signal was given and the “ Black Watch,” 
each member of which was a bandsman, was soon at home 
quarters in the woods of the demesne (Uppark), about a mile 
off. By this time it was quite dark. 
If rooks are like soldiers in their field evolutions they are 
sometimes at home model policemen. The ordinary rook has 
