up, round and round, till he is worn out, and drops, like what sportsmen call a "towered bird."

But the means mostly taken to keep rooks from doing mischief are less severe. It is quite a calling for boys to "Holloa the rooks" during seed and spring time. Sometimes the urchin has a gun, but the sly thieves soon find it won't go off, or that, if it does, the result is more alarming than dangerous. Sometimes the boy carries a dead rook, which he throws up into the air as high as he can. A few nervous birds think this the rising of their own appointed sentry, and make off.

It is very pleasant to watch the rooks at play; no animals enjoy the first fine days of early spring or late winter with greater glee. They then romp about in the bare trees like kittens. But I think that on the whole they find most pleasure in autumn. I remember one late September day, watching them for a long time. The air was perfectly still-you could hear the light tap of a falling leaf as it rustled to the ground. There was not a cloud in the sky but, as it seemed, unusual floods of warm silent sunshine. The rooks made a great to do for a time; they were at some council and could not agree. Presently, how

Up in the Air.

75

ever, they rose in a body and began flying upwards in wide circles till they looked like a parcel of little birds high up in the air-still sweeping round and round. Then, all at once, the whole community slid off in the same direction with level wing, till they passed away out of sight. They had flown so high to get this glorious launch. Their notes, when they dashed off down the air slope, were a chorus of corvine laughter. Two or three fell out, and came grumbling back; they had forgotten something, I suppose, or were bilious and unsociable-all the rest were absent for the

day.

Rooks do not always sleep at home. Sometimes the trees in which they may be said to live are deserted at night; generally when they are absent it is in company. You may frequently see many hundreds about sunset flying steadily in one direction: they are going to bed. Their only thought when turning in is to go to sleep with their noses to the wind.

Rooks' nests are built to last, being merely repaired from year to year. Indeed, I have known them put in "a stitch in time," even before the usual building season commenced.

They choose the sites for their dwellings

76

Building Places.

with much apparent caprice-sometimes fixing on low accessible firs, sometimes even solitary trees in the heart of London itself, though generally they prefer the "windy elms" near a country house. They lay four or five eggs, of a dull blotchy green, and place their nests close together on the tops of whatever trees they select for the purpose. Thus they are obliged to look very sharp after their proper sticks, and punish theft-sometimes even trespass-with strict severity; for they are occasionally as jealous of new comers, who try to settle honestly among them, as they are indignant at the discovery of fraud among the recognised members of their own community; in some cases uniting to drive them quite away, in others only pulling their half-built nest to pieces, when they try to build them too near to those of the original proprietors. But, on the whole, they agree pretty well among themselves.

NUTHATCHES.

HEN I was a boy I lived in a house which had an old mulberry tree a

few yards from the dining-room window. Its ragged bark, and, in several places, cracked decaying boughs, afforded shelter for a number of creeping insects. These, of course, were eagerly sought by various birds. There were always some tomtits prying and peeping about for such imperfectly concealed animals as their short soft bills could manage to pull out. But, besides these, we frequently noticed a pair of nuthatches, which not only chipped away lustily to lay bare covered dainties, but used the cracks in which to fix, as in a vice, the favourite food from which they have received their name. Whatever they ate, they liked nuts best.

Being generally considered shy birds, we were surprised at their venturing so near the house, and determined to return their confidence. At first we stuck nuts in crevices of

78

Taming Nuthatches.

the tree, and amused ourselves by watching these birds split them with their chisel-like bills. Presently, however, finding that they grew more constant in their visits, we cracked the shells for them, and pinned the kernels to a flat place where a bough, right in view of the window, had been sawn off. They soon found this out, and instead of hunting about all over the tree, would fly at once to the ready-spread table, and pitch into the nuts might and main.

Seeing their increasing confidence, we next nailed a piece of board, a foot square, to the top of a stake, which we then drove into the ground about half a yard from the window, and furnished it with nuts. Next day the birds came, and, finding their old table empty, began to look about, wondering what it meant. Presently they espied the fresh arrangement, and after a little hesitation would light on the board for a moment, chip a morsel off, and then wait to see whether any harm followed. Finding none, in a few days they came as readily to the board as they did in the first instance to the tree, and pegged away at the nuts, though two or three persons stood close by watching them through the window.

It was very amusing to watch the jealousy with which they always drove the tomtits away