BEAUTiriTL BIKDS. 
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will prevent all the mischief which this bird commits, 
and thus secure its invaluable services without being 
subjected to its depredations. A¥hen on theii' fo- 
raging excursions, Rooks display much cunning and 
precaution ; they appoint sentinels to take their 
station at various posts around the main body, and at 
the cry of any of these all rise upon the wing and 
sail away. The appearance of a gun is sufficient 
to disturb them, and hence it is said that rooks 
smell powder.” On the approach of evening, long 
strings of the birds may be seen at a considerable 
elevation wending their way to their roosting-place. 
In early spring they are all on the alert, busy in their 
rookery, repairing the old nests and building new 
ones ; all is noise and bustle, and numerous are the 
squabbles about the right of sticks and wool, till the 
nests are all finally completed. When the females 
begin to lay, they are fed by the males, and, as Gilbert 
White says, receive their bounty with a fond tremu- 
lous voice and fluttering wings, and all the little 
blandishments that are expressed by the young in a 
helpless state. This gallant behaviour of the males is 
continued during the whole season of incubation. 
In the genus Corvus, as exemplified in the common 
Carrion Crow {Corvus cor one), the bill is somewhat 
lengthened and strong, and well suited for digging 
into the ground, or for pushing or breaking hard sub- 
stances ; the tip of the upper mandible slightly indexed 
over the lower ; obsoletely or not at all notched ; 
culmen elevated, and slightly curved from the base. 
Nostrils covered and concealed with stiff, lengthened, 
incumbent bristles. The wings long and pointed ; the 
