Ways of the Crows
Rooks would seem to believe that while there is life there is hope. A dead rook displayed before other rooks for the first time attracts no particular attention beyond a casual inspection. But if a rook is wounded, and especially if it hops about with a broken wing, other rooks will swoop about it, and hover above with wonderful perseverance, squawking all the time excitedly, even in spite of a man with a gun. We have seen a hundred rooks perch on a fence to take stock of a relative caught in a trap set to pheasant eggs.
The cunning of rooks, crows, and magpies is very marked at nesting-time; and the keeper who would shoot them by hiding and waiting within shot of their nests may wait for hours in vain if the birds have seen him approach—as they seldom fail to do. The birds are cunning enough to watch from the top of a tall, distant tree, until they see the enemy go away, when they will return at once to the nest in full confidence. But they may be tricked quite easily. Let two men with a gun go together to stand below a rook's nest. Away go the nesting birds. Then let one of the men take his departure, with or without the gun, while the other waits. The birds will return promptly, as though they imagined both men had gone.
The keeper has small sympathy with the crow tribe, and takes every opportunity to reduce their numbers. Sometimes he will carry a ferret to an open spot, over which crows or others are likely to fly, peg the ferret down, and himself lie in wait with a gun. No rook, crow, magpie or jay can resist the temptation to mob the ferret. So the keeper takes advantage of the widespread bird-hatred of the weasel tribe. He traces a lost and wandering ferret by the wild clamouring of the jays that have caught sight of the bloodthirsty creature, or by hints from other birds, great and small.
