TIE ROOKERY, 10%

woods or natural groves. However, they have no
objection to the neighbourhood of man, but readily
take to a plantation of tall trees, though it be close to
4 house ; and this is commonly called a rookery. They
vill even fix their habitations on trees in the midst of
towns; and I have seen a rookery in a churchyard in
one of the closest parts of London.

fr, 1 think a rookery 18 a sort of town itself.

Myr, S¢. It is:—a village in the air, peopled with
numerous inhabitants; aad nothing can be more
amusing than to view them all in motion, flying to
and fro, and busied in their several occupations. The
spring is their busiest tame. arly in the year they
begin to repair their nests, or build new ones.

fr, Do they all work together, or every one for
itself P

Mr. Sé. Hach pair, after they have coupled, build
their own nest; and,instead of helping, theyare very apt
to steal the materials from one another. If both birds
go out at once in search of sticks, they often find, at
their return, the work all destroyed, and the materials
carried off; so that one of them generally stays at
home to keep watch. However, I have met with a
story which shows that they are not without some sense
of the criminality of thieving. There was in a rookery
a lazy pair of rooks, who never went out to get sticks
for themselves, but made a practice of watching when
their neighbours were abroad, and helped themselves
from their nests. They had served most of the com-
munity in this manner, and by these means had just
finished their own nest; when all the other rooks in a
rage fell upon them at once, pulled their nest in
pieces, beat them soundly, and drove them from their
society. |

Fr. That was very right—I should have liked to have
seen it. But why do they live together if they do not
help one another P

Mr. St. They probably receive pleasure from the
corapany of their own kind, as men, and various other