ROOK. 
241 
of any station existing in a retired or secluded 
region of forest, or indeed of any which has not 
a mansion of one kind or other, baronial hall, or 
lowly cottage, within sight or hearing. The Rook 
is at all times gregarious, and whether during 
the season of incubation, or during winter, may 
always be seen in large flocks feeding and roost- 
ing together. For a breeding station or rookery, 
all kinds of trees are indiscriminately used, 
though it is most frequently seen among woods 
of fir trees, or on those of beech, plane, and ash, 
which were then most in use for planting the 
avenues of the last and previous centuries. When 
it happens to be chosen among deciduous trees, 
the locality serves for a rookery only, and is 
returned to at the proper season, almost on a 
particular day, the premises being frequently 
visited during the intervening time ; but when 
placed in a wood of pines, the birds return 
nightly to roost through the year. In the former 
case, they resort during the winter to some pine 
wood often many miles distant from the breeding 
station, and which affords them warmth and 
shelter. Thence at day-break they depart to their 
feeding grounds, often visiting their breeding 
place as they pass or repass, and remaining for a 
short time as if examining its condition. Their 
flights are taken simultaneously, and having gained 
a convenient altitude, they fly in a mixed troop 
directly to the point intended. 
The food of the Rook consists less frequently 
of animal matter than that of the other Crows we 
a 
