11.] THE HISTORY OF A ROOK. 87

 

misapprehensions into which man is led by his selfish
and overbearing vanity. The real truth is that the
world was made for rooks, and not for man, and that
although the greater strength and destructive skill of
the latter give him at the present moment an advan-
tage over our noble race, those who believe in the
great and immutable principles of justice cannot but
rest assured that this advantage is but of a temporary
character, and that hereafter the rights of rookdom
will be triumphantly vindicated, and servile man shall
bow and cringe before his feathered superiors. Even
now, unwittingly and unwillingly, they minister to our
necessities. Why do they plough the ground with so
much care save to expose to our hungry beaks the
animal food in which we delight? Why do they plant
trees whose maturity will not be witnessed by their
own eyes, but by those of the generations to come?
Is it not that we rooks may have places in which to
build our nests in safety? And do they not, more-
over, show us. constant marks of respect by planting
boys as guards of honour in their fields, who by shouts
of ‘away crow!’ by discharges of antiquated firearms
incapable of injuring anything but the gunner himself,
and by fantastic displays of strangely attired figures
on sticks, serve to show how much our presence is
feared, if not appreciated, by the human race?
Thoughts upon all these subjects have frequently
occupied my mind, and although my race may be
depressed at present, in the dim vista of the future I
picture to myself a free, a great, and a glorious rook-
dom. But to my story.

After the breeding season had been finished, and