"As light struggles out of the darkness, the silence is broken more and more frequently, at some point or other of the plantation, so that the sound is disseminated over a larger and larger space, till, for some little while before the flight, the whole rookery seems to be talking at one and the same time. In reality, however, there is a constant cessation and renewal on the part of each individual bird.
"At 6.30 the sounds take a deeper and more emphatic tone. There is more solemnity, more meaning, and the meaning grows plainer and plainer as the asseveration becomes more and more emphatic, that 'it is, yes is, is really, positively is, is, is, is, is the morning.'
"At 6.35 there is the light, joyous 'chug-a, chug-a, chug-a,' besides which one catches—if one has a good ear—'hook, chook,—hook, took—hook-a-hoo-loo—chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck,—polyglot, polyglot.'
"Then there is a question—a serious and solemnly propounded question—'Quow-yow?' The answer—from another rook—is immediate and undoubted—'Yow-quow.'
"There are sounds which just miss being articulate and just evade one's efforts to write them down. It is significant that I have to use the word 'talking' to describe the rook's utterances. It is the one word; another would sound forced and strained.
"Throughout the babel, there is a tendency for it to sink and rise in sudden accentuations and diminishments. Now there is a diminishment, and a bird in the tree next to mine gives a sleepy stretch out of one wing, which has all the appearance of a yawn.
