ROOKS AND THEIR TREE-TOP VILLAGES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2391, 28 December 1899, Page 54

ROOKS AND THEIR TREE-TOP VILLAGES.

(Continued from page 36.)

service ; but I have peen them get their sticks with much more expedition than by this process. One Sunday morning I was attracted by a great clatter and caw-caw-ing among some old elm trees in a secluded city back garden. The noise was caused by a number of rooks which were dashing in and out among the outer branches of the trees, with mighty flappings of their powerful wings. At each onslaught down went a shower of sticks to the ground, from which, by-and-bye, the cunning birds gathered and carried them off. These -rooks were building in a church steeple near by, a kind of location they often choose when allowed to do so undisturbed. They also not infrequently build between the chimney caves on lofty dwelling houses, and I remember one or two occasions ©n which young ones tumbled down among the pots and pans below, as startling a surprise to the bird as to the housewife, no doubt.

According to rook ethics, only when a nest is almost completed, or egg-laying about to commence, may security be counted upon, for then rooks draw the line at rapacity and become suddenly as chivalrous towards their neighbours as formerly they were covetous. It is surprising how industriously both Mr and Mrs Rook toil at their home-making. I have never been up and out early enough in the morning to see them commence their labours, and Ibey do not "knock off" at night till daylight has pone. Nor are their proceedings slow in kind, for rooks aie most energetic in this making of new nests and mending of old ones, driven no doubt by a liberal trace of that marvellous altruism so universally an attribute of the animal kingdom. Either singly or in the aggregate these sable birds sec-m curious mimics of human-kind. To loiter, with watchful eye, beneath a rookery when its life is in full swing, is to take a lesson in Nature that is very like human nature. To view their rapid comings and goings, their loving caresses and gambols, their bickerings and quarrels and cunning tricks, is enough almost to make one believe that these birds have learnt most of what they know from, studying our own selves — jwhen we are least conscious of bein a watci>* s^t.

Books not only keep strict hold of their vested rights in tree-top property— they also 1 show considerable intolerance towards outsiders of their own species who attempt to join a settled community. Even the young birds, when fully able to fly and find " tucker " for themselves, are driven off by .their parents to go afield and found new settlements. This is a piece of great" natural shrewdness on the part of the old birds. Were the young ones made too free to remain and build near then- home- ths food supply would soon be heavily pressed 1 upon, and quite certainly the older" and less active birds would come off second best in the struggle to fill the larder. This contingency the parent birds wisely prevent by stringently enforcing a policy of "no stay-at-homes encouraged." In this connection, too, we must remember that the young are naturally more inclined to go aroaming than the old, just as happens in human life. If, too, the young pairs do not attempt to come very close to fhe old nests, they are oftem, when so minded, al- > lowed to establish themselves in the parental rookery. More direct hostility is shown towards stragglers from other localities. What must have been such a pair attempted to 'build in my rookery here. They made a brave struggle for a few days, only to have their work pulled .to pieces time after time. -The '"c's a stranger j 'cave 'alf a brick at 'im" ethic was too much for them, and they flew off and built; in a tree a quarter of a mite away.. As rookeries become enlarged by additions of natives it becomes an easier matter for mere outsiders to literally gain a' footing in them. Rookeries thus become sometimes enormous in dimensions. One of the largest ever known was situated at Newliston, near Edinburgh, about 60 years since, a rookery that was a veritable London-town of birds.' Newliston rookery had, in 1847, 2668 nests, and as it was a greajj gathering place for birds from all the district round, it was calculated that no less than 30,000 rooks were usually present in it. No wonder if, as a chronicler of the time states, their flocks literally darkened the air! Such a crowd of rooks must have done a "lot of harm, although we must allow that they; were bound to have done a lot of good too.' The fields for many a mile around should have been very clear of all manner of grub vermin at least. From an old-time "cautious observer" we have the following calculation- as an illustration of what a fewrooks are capable of doing towards the making of clean land. He found a nesfc containing five young rooks, and watched it closely, ascertaining that the birds, while still very young, consumed each on an average 20 cockchafer or other grubs daily. The parent birds, at a modest estir mate, would eat fifty each during the same time, so that between tihem the seven rooks would dispose of 200 grubs each day. This amounts to 20,000 in one season (three months). But as the chafer grub .continues in that state four seasons, this single pair, with their family alone, without reckoning their descendants after the first year, wofild destroy 80,000 grubs. Let us suppose th'afc the half — namely, 40,000, are females, and it is known that they usually lay about 200 eggs eaah ; it will appear that no less than eight millions have been destroyed, or prevented from being hatched, by the labours of a single family of rooks. It is by reasoning in this way that we learn to know of what importance it is to attend to the economy of Nature, and to be cautious how we derange it by our shortsighted and futile operations. Now, to turn towards a little data derived from the present 'moment. Not long since a paragraph appeared in the Weekly Scotsman describing a " massacre of crows" (rooks) on the Borders. The massacre extended over a month, and, irrespective op voting birds, over 4400 rooks were destroyed. At 3d a head this totals up to over £50, and gamekeepers get the credit (?) of accounting for most of the slain. Probably the Agricultural Society which paid the bill was satisfied, but — there usually is a "but" In such cases — the current issue of the Glasgow Weekly Herald says, "Places where war was waged against crows (rooks) are now suffering severely' from the prevalence of 'grub. 1 When puny man-inter-feres with Nature and proposes to set creation straight he usually finds that" his spanner doesn't grip worth a cent." It might have paid the farmers better to. have kept their threepences in their pockets, or even to have expended them on a few extra bushels of seed-corn as a passing feed for the rooks.

A curious fact about my rookery here " is that lodgers in large numbers, who pay

no rent, are tolerated in the nests. In this case rooks display more forbearance tfhan. we do, for these lodgers are none other than hordes of the common, unregenerate housesparrow. Sparrows are the greatest and most ineradicable of avian nuisances thrust upon us by unbenevolent Nature. Wherever they find a footing they maintain it,as many a land knows to its cost. The rooks seem to pay no heed to the presence of their small fellow-perchers, and certain it is that in this rookery 'almost every rooknest has a sparrow-nest in its basement. There the twigs are laid in rather open order, leaving plenty of space, in which these wee mice of the air have thrown together their untidy neste. It is a species of commensalism of lodging, if not of board, for which the lesser tenant may have to pay dearly a little later on. Rooks, like their cousin, the raven, like a bit of flesh food, and a nice, juicy sparrow " squab " would, I am sure, suit rook appetite and rook digestion admirably. I hope to discovei by-and-bye whether my rooks, like other folk, will be finding th^eir larder on the basement floor.

This rookery is situated upon the topmost branches of a number of elm and ash' trees. It is a peculiarity of the rook that it will always choose to build in the elm. in preference to any other tree. The reason of this preference has been much' discussed .by naturalists, but without any, conclusion having been arrived at. Failing elms, rooks build in pines (the largest rookeries I have seen were in pine plantations), upon the oak, and a few other trees. They almost invariably endeavour to secure tha

nost inaccesible position, choosing trees whose stems are devoid of branches pave at the top. This is a rule not without exceptions. Many years ago I knew a small yookery that was built upon sycamores, the nests being placed, some of them, not more than 14ft, none of them above 20ft, from the ground. ' This is the nearest to earth I ever knew rooks to build. Unfortunately, the site was near a large parish church, and about a dozen of the nests overhung the footpath leading thereto, the unhappy consequence being that many worshippers had their Sunday duds besplashed in anything but a desirable manner. r Jhe outraged ones petitioned for the ejectment of the sable community guilty of such very shocking ill-behaviour, and the nests were destroyed and the offending inhabitants driven away.

Rooks are the most sociable of birds, for •they not only gather in large communities during the nesting season, but also remain in company during every part of the year. Their gatherings during the winter months are almost always large, often immense, and, if report speak truly, conducted on a, basis of organisation not unlike that which distinguishes orr own political state. To go into that matter would take me too far from the cool and pleasant shade of my rockery trees, so I will not pursue it. That rooks are intelligent birds there can be no gainsaying, even though one had no reason to cite from the behaviour . of individual birds. Their present flourishing condition as a species is just as good an argument for their fitness as the same would" -be for our own. Rooks are, in fact, birds in a state of semi-civilisation, more so probably than any other feathered species whatever. Unlike really wild birds rooks form attachments to people even without positive apparent cause. A story is told of a farmer near whose dwelling a few pairs of rooks built. He was intelligent and liked the birds, and they lived undisturbed within his gate. After a few years he went to another farm a few miles off, regretfully leaving his feathered- neighbours behind. He hardly expected to have them near him again, but in that fie was deceived. Only li month or two had gone by ere these curious birds had discovered their old friend's whereabouts, and not long afterwards they forsook their old nests and came and built close to his new home. Yet rooks are essentially wild birds. Living in close contact with man end his works, they earn then.' livelihood despite of, rather than by favour of, him. To do this from generation to generation meaiib increment of civilisation, and, if men have a great deal of this increment, rooks have at least got a little. So in spite of thc-ir wildn-3-ss and because of their being to some extent fine-ground in the mill of civilisation, rooks are easily domesticated. An English lady, Mrs Cole, of Condovcr Hall, near Shrewsbury, a, few years since found r,n old rook upon the roadside. It hai a gun-shot wound in its side, and one wing was quite blown off. It seemed very old and wild, but the kdy took it home and placed it in a tree in her garden, whence, though left quite at liberty, it never failed to come and eat out of her hand when called, and showed in many ways extraordinary devoiion and great intelligence. There .'re many instances of rooks thus taking kindly to the companionship of human beings in place of their own 'kind. After all, rook nature and human nature are much alike, ant! rook-feeling cannot be other than very like that we ourselves harbour in our hearts. If .rooks are nou always compassionate towards their fellows they at least sometimes are .so, which is as much as we can. with truth, say for ourselves. During times of bitter, hard, winter weather, when food is far from easily got, rooks have been seen by various observers to carry food to feeble comrades so far gone as to be unable to find any for themselves. Several such instances have been reported in the English Spectator, Land and Water, anel other respectable magazines. These hungry, hal£slarved birds must lnve had keen feelings of sympathy for their less sfrong friends, else why should they not eat the morsels themselves?

Building in towns or near them may bs considered by some as a courting of dmger on the part of the rook.s. On the contrary, it is really a getting out of the way of it. In the country there are " societies," which at certain specified times disburse threepence per head for every rook cranium sent in. This wretched " capitation grant " bears huidly on the poor rooks, and naturally they don't like it. To escape it the wise and knowing one? ;r *■ - ; them come to town to build their and rear their bicods in safety, wh... yunnery practice is strictly prohibited. Ho far as I have been able to observe all the young ones of my village have got on the wing without mishap. The rookeiy, now that the young are out and about, is still busy and bustling, but quieter than it was a few weeks ago. Young and old, the birds now resort in flocks to the sappy meadows of an irrigation farm near by, where they evidently find an abundance of good things to ihcir liking. Last Sunday I got up at half-past 4 in the morning to see them very intent unon an early breakfast there. Many of tiiem were also on the roadway, bustling and quarrelling over crusts of bread, etc., dropped by children at play during the previous evening. They seemed not unlike children themselves, with their bits of jealousies and preferences all on the surface.

Thus occupied, they will stay about the neighbourhood till towards the end of summer, when both parents and young ones go off for a long winter sojourn in the country. In that regard they reverse the usual huai in programme. Before takin<r final leave they indulge a curious habit o.f 'congregating among the nests, even mending them a little, but they soon fly away for good to follow the plough and gorge themselves with the good things it turns no for them. I venture to prophesy that tha time is not far distant when the rook will follow the plough in New Zealand soil as it now follows it on that of Britain — und let time tell whether I am a prophet or hot..

The rook is a fine example of the survival of fitness in Nature. During ages many hands have been against it, but its family is as numerous as ever, and as well set up. Farmers and their men, armed with blunderbusses, horse-pistols, breechloaders, and other deadly weapons, have kept blazing away at it for centuries with as little effect in doing it specific harm as is wrought by the ridiculous images stuck up in fields and called "scare-crows." It contrives almost at all times to gain an excellent, if not always perfectly honest, livelihood, despite every obstacle. Whatevei the food may be that Nature originally decreed as its sustenance, like ourselves it has triumphal over Nature in that matter and become omnivorous. It is a, first-class " grubber," but when grubs are scarce it will have grain or some other good thing.

After all, rook-nature is only mothernature, and rook-traits are human-like because, perhaps, the same passions, desires, ond necessities are common to all animate beings. With all its clamorous caw-cawing, many-toned, but almost always utterly unmusical, a colony of rooks is still nothing short of a wonder of Nature. Common, as ants and human beings are common, rooks yet own a similar right to distinction in virtue of their sociability, energy, and sagacity, qualities which, with others of theirs, have stood them in good stead amid the everlasting struggle for fair conditions of hie. With Tennyson, we may ask if there be " any moral shut within the bosom of the rose " ? If a rose holds a moral a rook must hold one at "least as good. Whether it does so or not, we certainly may endorse the words of the same poet when he says : *

The sleeper awakenr.d disposed 'of, he- is succeeded by half a dozen boys of from 12 to 14, who are found guilty of playing in the street, while another, not more than 10, conies in on his own, because there are additional horrors in his case, inasmuch as he also let off crackers. He gets three days. They are just common gutter boys without parents to speak of, and so for them • is fulfilled the saying, " When my father and mother forsake me, then the law will take me up." An older lad, charged with the same offence, makes a fight for his liberty. He goes into the witness box on his own behalf, and gives his version of the affair, which is that he was " doin' nothink,"' but ran away from the policeman on the general principle that policemen were good to get away from, and that the policeman forthwith collared him and said, "Coma 'ere with me," and wouldn't say what for. He is asked if he has any witnesses to speak for him, and on his reply in the negative, is hurried off vociferating, "I &ay, your Wushup, I could have got loads of witnesses ; but 'c wouldn't tell me wot I was took up for, the bobby wouldn't ; so 'off could I, yer Wushup? When I sez to him, ' Wot's it fur? ' he sez to me, ' You shut up, or I'll make it worse ier yer ! ' " But if prisoners cannot guess by instinct what they are arrested for, it certainly is not, the magistrate's or anyone else's business to enlighten them. " Bella Saunders ! " Bella, steps forward to the railings. She is a girl of that class which is popularly supposed to belong to the policeman, body and soul, in which ca'-e whom he loves he chastens. The slight protuberance of the lower part of her faoe gives her' not a mon-key-like, but rather a sheep-like expression. Her love of beauty displays itself in a

with only men to appeal to, it is not too soon that the reform -was made, and the quicker other communities follow such an example the better. The only possible objection to such a course is the difficulty of obtaining suitable women with enough tact and strength of mind to discharge the dimcult and sometimes unpleasant duties devolving on them. But this difficulty does not seem to have arisen in Sydney. When the prisoners have been escorted to their cell, there to await their removal to Darlinghursl, I have an opportunity of interviewing one of the matrons. She is a fresh-complexioned, middle-aged woman with strong but kindly features and a resolute chin. Her opinion is that the duties are not so heavy as she expected. At firso she had a little trouble with the women : but now they both understand each other better, and some of them, she thinks, she has persuaded to lead better lives.

But the. best argument for the police matron is the tawdry girl out in the courts with her fierce declaration that she hates the bobby, hates him, hates him, hates him ; but she just loves this 'ere matron, that j=hc does ; and she is goin' to do wot she tells 'er, that she is ; but c.s for the pleeceman and tire old bloke tip on the platform, — here the tawdry one's language becomes quite too lurid for publication.

— The School Board Committee of Lower Austria has served all teachers in the Cantonal Schools of that province with a written injunction to impress on the youths under their oare the importance of preserving singing birds from extinction. Special instruction on birds, their use and beauty, is to be introduced into the daily curriculum, and, in particular, attention is to be given to the rearing of singing birds.

But any man that walks the mead, In hud or blade or bloom may find, According as his humours lead, A meaning suited to his mind.