COUNTRY LIFE
A RAGING wind is to a great many birds like a rough sea to a small boat. They are definitely afraid of it. Some long-tailed birds, conspicuously the pheasant, quite refuse to fly down it. The fond sportsman—as I have seen—who hopes to drive them in high career out of the wood into the open on a favouring gale sees the whole company keep low and turn back over the heads of the beaters. The long-winged birds are like the long-tailed. In recent gales several species of gull have been driven far inland from fear and inability to face the pressure, as the short-winged heavy duck can face it and bore through it. One of the very few birds that has rejoiced, almost hilariously, in recent storms has been the rook, a bird that shares the flying quality of duck and gull. They are not " blown about the windy sky," they are continually using the wind, diving and curvetting and climbing, till they have had enough gymnastics. Then they come down low and make their necessary journeys in pedestrian fashion. The exceptional number of rooks now abroad in England is feared by some farmers ; but those who watched them trying to compete with the fantastic number of emerging leather-jackets will be confirmed in their faith that the bird is beneficent.
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