ANNALS OF A ROOKERY.
DOMESTIC rooks, nesting round a good old English country-house, are always attractive creatures ; their presence adds a certain distinction and air of long establish- ment to the human home, and the time-honoured belief which asserts the connection between the continuance of the one and the other is not without grounds of fact. Mr. J. G. Sowerby, of Chollerton, Northumberland, has acknowledged the compliment paid to his house by the patronage of his rooks, by publishing a monograph* on their life and habits, written from notes taken during a number of years, and illustrated by sketches drawn with much artistic feeling, and a literal truth to facts, of their nests, the trees in which they build, and their situation round the gables and out- buildings of his fine old house. He has even taken a hint from Bai Rei's "Hundred Birds," and sketched the rooks' nests from between the chimney-pots. A strong rookery close to a house offers better chances for observing the effects of weather on the domestic economy of bird. life, as well as of the processes of building, hatching, and rearing the young, than any other bird community. Swallows and martins nest even nearer to our indoor life than the rooks ; but the lateness of the season at which they build saves the old birds from exposure to rough weather either when building or carrying food to the young. Heronries are seldom found within observing distance of a house—though there is one such in Hampshire — and much of the life of the birds is invisible, owing to their nocturnal habits. But a rookery such as that which Mr. Sowerby describes can be seen in all weathers from the
windows, and the effects of rain and storms noted without trouble or discomfort. Mr. Sowerby was accustomed to watch his rooks from the house-top, and illustrates his watch- post by a capital picture—perhaps the first which has ever been engraved—of the scene among the roof-ridges and tiles of an old English manor-house, with the rook trees and nests almost level with the eaves. The following was what he saw during an equinoctial gale when the rooks were sitting, and the cock-birds, which, unlike the sparrows and starlings, have to make a long journey each time they fetch food for the hens, were struggling home in wind and rain. "During the hatching-period this year we had a succes- sion of snowstorms and heavy winds. My place of obser- vation at this time of the year was the roof of my house, and as the branches of the trees almost touched it, I had a very near view of all that went on amongst our friends. On a Sunday at this season it had been sleeting the whole day, and about 4 o'clock I wrapped myself up well, and climbed through the bacon-room—which is in the roof—on to the leads. What a wild scene it was, to be sure! The husband rooks, wet and weary, were struggling over the whitened fields, with their wives' suppers, pitching and rolling about like luggers in a gale of wind. Soaked through and miserable, hungry and cross on account of the long absence of their husbands, the wives come out of their nests to see if they can catch a glimpse of the laggards. The latter are in bad tempers too, and as both are accompanied by the noise of the rushing, hurrying wind, you can imagine by what a scene of disorder I was surrounded." The Northumberland rooks seem to begin building at a uniform date, without regard to season. Mr. Sowerby notes that his birds, in three successive years, had completed their nests on the 7th, 8th, and 9th of March respectively, and that in a rookery at twenty miles' distance the dates only differed by one day. Perhaps this is due to the carnivorous habits lately acquired by the North-country rook, who has been obliged to forego his usual practice of following the plough and feeding on the follows and land prepared for spring sowing, because the greater part of the dis- trict is now not ploughed at all, but converted into grass- land. The Chollerton rooks are depicted eating a dead sheep like any carrion-crow ; and on the northern sheep. farms " braxy " mutton is common enough in the lambing- time to provide free meals for many colonies of deuaoralised rooks.
• Rooks and their Neighbours. By J. G. Sowerby. London : Gay and Bird. Newcastle-on-Tyne: Ranson, Swan, and Morgan.
In the South, though the rooks are the earliest of our commoner birds to begin nesting, the date depends entirely on the weather. Even if the season is fine, their nests require so much labour that the eggs are often not laid until after those of the brown-owl and stock-dove. If the end of February and the beginning of March is dry and cold they usually suffer from want of food, and then nesting is postponed. The old birds often come to look at their nests, and occasionally bring a few sticks to add to them ; but even after mild winters, no solid work is done till March 1st. Looking back over notes taken during the last twelve years, we see that in 1886, when February and March were re- markably cold, the southern rooks did not begin building till March 19th; while in the next year they had begun to line their nests on March 8th, though the frost and snow which followed later in that year caused them to postpone laying for some time. But wind is the chief natural difficulty encountered by the nesting-rook, as drought or rain are the trials of the later period when the young are batched. The great object of the experienced rook is to secure a foundation for its nest, which will resist a gale of wind. At least two days' work is needed before the nest will stand even a fresh breeze. The work begins at a time when roaring north-east winds are more common than not, and the nest is sheltered by no foliage ; but the perseverance of the rooks when work- ing in a gale is exemplary.
One gusty March we watched a pair who had selected the windward tree in a clump. The beginnings of the nest were blown away five times, but the birds did not forsake the tree, and at last made their foundations safe. Dead twigs and branches form a very small part of the nest. Very rotten pieces are sometimes taken and broken up to form a stuffing between the outer cup and the lining, but these would not be supple enough to weave strongly together for the main framework. Every twig has therefore to be twisted off some branch, often with considerable effort. The rook walks along the bough till he finds it too slender to give him a firm foothold, and then, seizing it with his bill, twists it to and fro, like a man breaking a piece of wire. The soft slender twigs of lime-trees snit them admirably for this purpose. One bird does the greater part of the stick-cutting, while the other is architect. It is most comical to watch the former, after delivering his twig, perch upon some bough close by, and caw, apparently giving advice as to its proper place and arrangement, while its partner is wattling it into the nest. These twigs have a certain economic value in the eyes of rooks. They are a manufactured article, and it is these that are occasionally purloined when both birds are absent from a nest. In this respect, the northern rooks seem less honest than their southern relations. "The morals of rooks," writes Mr. Sowerby of those round his house, "are utterly bad as to thieving and stealing, even at times when there is every chance of detection. Whenever an opportunity offers, they rob from their neighbours' nests to furnish their own; this, of course, is only done when the master is away from home In time his tormentors have enough to do to manage their own affairs, and he patiently waits, biding his time. Then, as one of his late tormentors sails away with the wind, he swoops down upon the unprotected, half-finished nest of his enemy, and with two or three good tugs at the main rafters, down comes the whole structure."
Birds which, like rooks, starlings, and sparrows, live com- monly round houses, are seldom thought worth the trouble of keeping in captivity, yet rooks make intelligent and amusing pets, and will become as tame as parrots. Mr. Sowerby gives a history of one bird, which lived on friendly terms with a kitten, a puppy, and all the human members of the house- hold. In its easy life indoors it showed little of the sober, practical character of the wild rook, and developed tastes more commonly seen in tame ravens, jays, and magpies. It stored all its superfluous food in holes and corners, and with it all the " curios " which took its fancy. "He had stores of apple-peel, cherries, pears, string, needles, the ends of cigarettes, and many other such odds and ends, which he would hide in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, and only encroach on when he found himself short of other delicacies." On the other hand, the insect-catching tastes of the rook made it a useful inmate in a country house and garden. It caught ants, flies, cockroaches, and humble-bees, cockroaches being looked on as " game " and hunted with particular zeal, would even join in a game of rounders and fly off with the ball, as a wild rook did recently with a golf-ball which had fallen on some bare ground after a long drive. This rook escaped, and joined the wild birds. But in most cases temporary domestication unfits them for the wild life, even in the neighbourhood of the house in which they have been kept. Three young rooks, which were recently tamed and allowed their liberty, used to fly out with the wild birds, returning to the house in the evening to be fed, and roosting in an out-house. All of these birds died at intervals, not from any injury, or from want of food, but apparently from the effects of eating something which the wild rooks had either avoided or were in better case to digest.
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