SIR,--Perhaps you have read the stories now being told in the
_Spectator_ about rooks and wasps as Policemen. "W.H.W.H." says that a
pair of rooks were persecuted while building their nest, and that a big
rook was deputed to guard them from attack--which he did, like other
policemen, by employing the "beak." There is really nothing at all
remarkable about this tale. Rooks are much more wonderful creatures than
anybody knows about. In my own garden, for instance, there is a rook who
acts as chaplain to a whole rookery. He might almost be called a "bird
of pray." Every Saturday he assembles all the rooks on one large tree,
and caws solemnly to them for ten minutes. I have noticed (through an
opera-glass) that the congregation wears a very devout appearance.
Churchwarden rooks go round while the service is proceeding, and peck
any birds that seem inattentive. At the close there is a universal caw,
which I believe stands for "Amen." It is a curious fact that the
chaplain rook on these occasions always ornaments himself with a wisp of
white grass tied round his neck, which increases his clerical aspect. I
have tried to induce the rooks--by firing at them with small shot--to
adopt Sunday instead of Saturday as their day of devotions, but hitherto
without success. You may think the above worth publishing. It is quite
true.
Yours, &c.,
LONGBOW.
SIR,--Here is a fact which beats "W.H.W.H.'s" rook story hollow. Rooks
are keen politicians. I once saw an assembly of them--I don't know if it
was the local Caw-cus or not--divide into two portions, one going to one
tree, another to another, and then two elderly rooks went round, and
counted both batches. After the counting was over they returned from the
lobbies, and business proceeded as before. I have seen the closure very
effectually put on a talkative rook.
Yours,
VERACITY.
SIR,--I can confirm these tales of animal Policemen in every
particular--indeed, I am able to add to them. I have often seen a couple
of tom-tits, on leaving their nests for an outing, put a tom-tit
constable on guard till they came back. But here is a still more
remarkable circumstance. On one occasion several other tom-tits wanted
to rob this deserted nest, and they actually came up to the constable
and put something in his claw, after which he looked the other way while
they were rifling the nest. _They had bribed him!_ Comment is
superfluous.
Yours,
KEEN OBSERVER.
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Grandolph's Logic.
Your Purchase Bill is bad from top to toe--
Drop it, dear boys, then to the country go,
And say 'twas through Gladstonian ill-will
It lost that blessed boon, your bad, bad Bill!
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LIVING AND LEARNING.--Sir, from a paragraph in _The Times_ about the
Newfoundland Fisheries, I gather the existence of "Lobster Factories."
Never knew this was an industry. Had always thought that Lobsters, like
poets, were born, not made.
Yours,
A NATURALIST.
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