104 
G. HOOPER-BIRDS: THEIR NESTS AND HABITS. 
birds, before their first moult, are never found in the rook. The 
habit of the crow is solitary, living in pairs all the year round, and 
never returning to the nest of the previous year. This is always 
built on the fork of a tree, or of a branch. It is beautifully 
finished internally by a lining of moss and hair as round and firm 
as a basin. The rook’s nest is a slovenly affair, generally on the 
top of the tree, the lining of bents, moss, and twitch. It is never 
found singly; indeed, the rook is the most, if not the only, abso¬ 
lutely gregarious bird we have; others, like the sparrows, chaf¬ 
finches, larks, pee-wits, and many more, collect in vast flocks in 
autumn and winter, but the spring invariably breaks up the com¬ 
munity. The rook, a truly social bird, lives all the year round in 
a sort of commonwealth, the members going out and returning, 
feeding in the day and roosting at night in great flocks. They have 
many habits peculiar to themselves, and some are invented for 
them. They are said, when feeding, to place a sentinel on a tree 
to warn them of the approach of danger, but I don’t believe a word 
of it. When many hundreds of birds are congregated in one field, 
some are sure to be perched on the trees, and will of course fly off 
first, the rest taking the hint and following their example, possibly 
not without cause. They are said to smell powder, and no doubt 
they have an acquired knowledge and dread of a gun. But if you 
approach them with a stick on your arm, the effect will be the 
same. The crow is an arrant poacher, far more mischievous to 
game than is the hawk. If he discover a nest or a covey of young 
birds, he will fly backwards and forwards, never resting till he has 
taken away the last of them. He is especially partial to young 
ducks. The hawk, excepting when he has a young family to pro¬ 
vide for, is satisfied with one or two young birds, which having 
devoured he sits placidly on a tree or stone and digests. The 
crow is an earlier riser than the rook, and no doubt meets his 
reward in getting the earlier worm. The rook, as I have said, is 
devoid of hairs on his upper mandible. This is not caused by his 
digging in the ground, as is commonly supposed, but is natural to 
the bird ; in fact he never dips his bill at all deeply into the ground, 
and, when he has occasion to turn over a big stone in search of the 
worm or beetle beneath, he applies his bill sideways, which in that 
position is in the shape of a wedge. Books have a habit of 
carrying acorns and chestnuts and other fruit and burying them 
in the earth, a provision of nature for the extension of forest trees. 
The young birds make a very good pie, as do young crows, though 
there is a prejudice against them, and the eggs, it is said, are 
sometimes sold as plovers’ eggs, though during 50 years’ observa¬ 
tion of shops where plovers’ eggs are sold, I have never known an 
instance, the only substitute I have seen for that toothsome dainty 
being the eggs of the black-headed gull. Although eminently 
gregarious, the rook can hardly be called a sociable bird, nor does 
his character stand high from a moral point of view. Like the rest 
of the tribe, from the raven to the jackdaw, he is a sad thief; the 
rookery at nesting time is the scene of constant bickering, arising 
