Imperial Rooks
We have a little story of how some rooks paid a pretty compliment to an Empress. The preceding tenant of the Empress Eugénie's place at Farnborough is said to have spent hundreds of pounds in a vain attempt to induce rooks to build in the trees. Old brooms were hoisted—real rooks' nests, with and without eggs, were fixed in the most tempting sites among the tree-tops—young rooks were procured and given every attention—and some were even hatched and reared artificially. But the rooks refused to colonise. Then came the Empress; and promptly the rooks came also. Soon a flourishing rookery was established. Perhaps the new-comers, too, were exiles.
