bolt upright, seeming to stand on tip-toe. More than upright he is—bent back, trying to look like a soldier, but obliged to be graceful and elegant. Standing thus, he seems on the very point of trumpeting, yet does not, and then runs on again. He repeats this, several times, each time thinking of trumpeting, but desisting and going on.
"At 7.58 the flight out commences. Two or three birds are a little in front, none very prominently so, and others are catching them up and seem just on the point of passing them when they are lost to me in the mist. There is nothing suggesting a leader. If they were led it was not by one of themselves, for with them and in their very fore-front two little birds were flying, who passed with them out of sight. They were tits, I think, and in another flight out, after one of the pauses—for the rooks fly out by relays, like the starlings—I noticed one other, all three, I believe, being parus cæruleus. There are quite a number of tits in the plantation and woods adjoining, but why just three should leave it and go flying with the rooks through the mist, over the open country, if not for the mere joy and fun of the thing, I know not. All at once a number of the out-flying birds turn in their flight, and swoop back, with a great rush of wings, to the plantation. Afterwards, at intervals, there are other such returns, little bands of the birds seeming to say, 'Oh, let's go back to bed. It's much nicer,' and doing so. This, too, is exactly what the starlings do. The birds, as they fly, are all vociferous, and the air is laden with a pleasant burden of 'chug-chow, chug-chow, chug-chow. Chugger-chugger-chow. How-chow, how-chow.' The rooks talk a kind of Chinese.
