"A large band, flying very high. Two birds fly nearly parallel, at some distance ahead.
"Two large bands, also very high. In each, one bird is a good way ahead. The apparent leader of the second band increases his distance, curves a good deal out of the line originally pursued, nor do the others alter their course in accordance.
"Two other bands. In each the leader theory seems untenable. The birds have a broadly extended front, and fly at different elevations. There is nothing that suggests concerted movement, but, on the contrary, great irregularity.
"In another band the apparent leader swoops down to the ground, and, whilst only half-a-dozen or so follow him, the main body proceeds on its way.
"Hitherto there has been a good deal of the familiar cawing noise, but, now, a number of birds fly joyously up, hang floating in the air, make twists and tumbles, perform antics and evolutions, and descend upon the ground with wide parachute-like swoops from side to side, the wings outspread and without a flap. I am first made aware of their approach by the complete change of note. It is now the flexible, croodling, upturned note—rising at the end, I mean—that I know not how to describe, totally different from the 'caw,' nor do I hear a 'caw' from any of these descending birds. It is the note of joy and sport, of joyous sport in the air, of antics there as they sweep joyously down through it, that I now hear. The birds that caw are flying steadily and soberly by. The 'caw' is the steady jog-trot note of the day's daily toil and business—'Jog on, jog on, the footpath way.'
"Another great band, of such length and straggling formation that the birds in the latter part of it could not possibly see the leader if there were one—or indeed, I should think, the vanguard at all. The first bird is passed by two others, then passes one of these again, and remains the second as long as I can see them.
"Another long flight that seems leaderless. With the 'caw' comes a note like 'chug-a, chug-a, chug-a' (but the u more as in Spanish), and others that I cannot transcribe. This flight goes on almost continuously—I mean without a distinct gap dividing it from another band—for about ten minutes, when another great multitude appears, flying at an immense height and all abreast, as it were—that is to say, a hundred or so in a long line of only a few birds deep. This, perhaps, would be the formation best adapted for observing and following one bird that flew well in front, but I can see no such one. All these birds are sailing calmly and serenely along, giving only now and again an occasional stroke or two with the wings. Now comes a further great assembly, in loose order, all flying in the same direction. A characteristic of these large flights of rooks is that their van will often pause in the air and then wheel back, circling out to either side. The rearguard is thus checked in its advance, the birds of either section streaming through each other, till the whole body, after circling and hanging in the air for a little, like a black eddying snowstorm (all at a great height), wend on again in the same direction, towards their distant roosting-place. With the air full of the voice of the birds, there is no caw—only the flexible, croodling, chirruppy note that has a good deal of music in it, as well as of expression. This note, I think, is what I have put down as 'chug-a, chug-a, chug-a.'
"There is now a continuous straggling stream, forming ever so many little troops. The first bird of one troop tends to become the last of the one preceding it, and the last one the leader of the troop following. Then come numbers, flying in a very irregular and widely disseminated formation, yet together in a certain sense. There is much of rising and sinking and again floating upwards, of twists and twirls and sudden, dashing swoops downwards, from side to side, like the car of a falling balloon; two birds often pursuing each other in this way.
"And now come two great bands, one flying all abreast, as before described, the other forming a great, irregular, quasi-circular rook-storm. Leadership in the latter case would be an impossibility; in the former I see no sign of it. All these birds, though at a fair height, are flapping steadily along in the usual prosaical manner; through them, and far above—at a very great height indeed, the highest I have yet seen, and far beyond anything I should have imagined—I see another band gliding smoothly, majestically on, with scarce an occasional stroke of the eagle-spread pinions. The one black band of birds seen through the others, far, far above them, has a curious, an inspiring effect."