BIRDS. 219 
garious, and often fly in large companies in the fields or 
in the woods. On the upland moors, Crows occupy the 
place which rooks fill in the low country ; and as the 
Crow has a very coarse and uncouth voice, the Lowlanders 
of Scotland are in the habit of saying that the Highland 
rooks " speak Gaelic." They are great destroyers of 
partridges, as they generally pierce their eggs with their 
bill, and carry them in that manner through the air, to a 
great distance, to feed the cravings of their young. The 
female lays five or six eggs. 
Mr. Montagu states that he once saw a Crow in pursuit 
of a pigeon, at which it made several pounces, like a hawk; 
but the pigeon escaped by flying in at the door of a house. 
He saw another strike a pigeon dead from the top of a 
barn. The Crow is so bold a bird that neither the kite, 
the buzzard, nor the raven can approach its nest without 
being driven away. When it has young ones, it will 
even attack the peregrine falcon; and at a single pounce 
will bring that bird to the ground. 
THE ROOK. (Corvusfrugilegits.} 
ffHK cawing of these birds, on the tops of high trees near 
gentlemen's houses, and in the middle of cities, is not very 
pleasing ; yet old habits, to which we are reconciled, have 
as much influence upon us, as if they were productive of 
