umerous inhabitants;
and 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 time. Early in the year they begin to repair their nests, or
build new ones.

[Illustration: CROW.]

_F_. Do they all work together, or every one for itself?

_Mr. S._ Each pair, after they have coupled, builds its own nest; and,
instead of helping, they are 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. 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 helping themselves from their nests. They had served most of
the community 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.

_F_. But why do they live together, if they do not help one another?

_Mr. S._ They probably receive pleasure from the company of their own
kind, as men and various other creatures do. Then, though they do not
assist one another in building, they are mutually serviceable in many
ways. If a large bird of prey hovers about a rookery for the purpose of
carrying away the young ones, they all unite to drive him away. And when
they are feeding in a flock, several are placed as sentinels upon the
trees all round, to give the alarm if any danger approaches.

_F_. Do rooks always keep to the same trees?

_Mr. S._ Yes; they are much attached to them, and when the trees happen
to be cut down, they seem greatly distressed, and keep hovering about
them as they are falling, and will scarcely desert them when they lie on
the ground.

_F_. I suppose they feel as we should if our town was burned down, or
overthrown by an earthquake.

_Mr. S._ No doubt. The societies of animals greatly resemble those of
men; and that of rooks is like those of men in the savage state, such
as the communities of the North American Indians. It is a sort of league
for mutual aid and defence, but in which every one is left to do as he
pleases, without any obligation to employ himself