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260 blue sky of this fine bright October morning—the last one of the month—had a charming effect.

"A fortnight later I happened to be near some woods to which rooks were flying from all directions, to roost, as I thought then, but afterwards I found it was only one of their halting places. They were in countless numbers, one great troop after another flying up from far away over the country. The air was full of their voices, which were of a great variety and modulation, the ordinary harsh (though pleasant) 'caw' being perhaps the least noticeable of all. Each troop flew high, and, on coming within a certain distance of the wood—a fair-sized field away—they suddenly began to swoop down upon it in long sweeping curves or slants, at the same time uttering a very peculiar burring note, which, though much deeper and essentially rook-like in tone, at once reminded me of the well-known sound made by the nightjar. Imagine a rook trying to 'burr' or 'churr' like a nightjar, and doing it like a rook, and you have it. Whilst making these long downward-slanting swoops the birds would often twist and turn in the air in an astonishing manner, sometimes even, as it seemed to me, turning right over as a peewit does, in fact, exhibiting powers of flight far beyond what anyone would imagine rooks to possess, who had only seen or noticed them on ordinary occasions.

"Whilst these birds sweep down into the trees others of them settle on the adjoining meadow-land, but they do not descend upon it in the same way, but more steadily, though still with many a twist and turn and whirring, whizzing evolution. Neither do they utter the strange burring note to which I have called