Aaron one day was engaged with his ferret and nets in the Pitching, just at the bottom of the hill, where there grew a quantity of brake-fern as tall as the shoulder. It was shrivelled and yellow, but thick enough to give him very good cover. Every now and then he looked out into the lane to see if any one was about, and on one of these occasions saw what he imagined at first to be a colony of rats migrating; but when they came near, racing down the lane, he found they were weasels. He counted fourteen, and thought there were one or two more.
Aaron also told me a curious incident that happened to him very early one morning towards the beginning of spring. The snow was on the ground and the moon was shining brightly as he got on the railway (a few miles from Okebourne) and walked some distance up it: he did not say what for, but probably as the nearest way to a cover. As he entered a deep cutting where the line came round a sharp curve he noticed strange spots upon the snow, and upon examination found it was blood. For the moment he thought there had been an accident; but shortly afterwards he picked up a hare's pad severed from the leg, and next a hare's head, and presently came on a quantity of similar fragments, all fresh. He collected them, and found they had belonged to six hares which had been cut to pieces by a passing train. The animals were so mutilated as not to be of the least use.
When I told Hilary of this, he at once pronounced it impossible, and nothing but one of Aaron's lies. On reflection, however, I am not so sure that it is impossible, nor can I see any reason why the old poacher should invent a falsehood of the kind. It was just a time of the year when hares are beginning to go 'mad,' and, as they were not feeding but playing together, they might have strayed up the line just as they do along roads. Most persons must have observed how quietly a train sometimes steals up—so quietly as to be inaudible: a fact that has undoubtedly been the death of many unfortunates. Now, just at this spot there was a sharp curve, and if the driver shut off steam as he ran round it the train very likely came up without a sound. The sides of the cutting being very steep, the hares, when at last they perceived their danger, would naturally rush straight away along the metals. Coming at great speed, the engine would overtake and destroy them: a miserable end for the poor creatures in the midst of their moonlight frolic. But what Aaron laid stress on was the fact that he could not even sell the skins, they were so cut to pieces.
The rooks' nests in the Chace were very numerous, and were chiefly built in elm trees, but some in tall spruce firs. It was easy to know when the birds had paired, as a couple of rooks could then be often seen perched gravely side by side upon an old nest in the midst of leafless boughs, deliberating about its repair. There were some poplars near a part of the rookery, and when the nests were fully occupied with young the old birds frequently alighted on the very top of an adjacent poplar. The slender brush-like tip of the tree bent with their weight, curving over like a whip, to spring up when they left.
The rooks were fond of maize, boldly descending among the poultry kept in a rickyard within a short distance of their trees. If any one has a clump of trees in which rooks seem inclined to build and it is desired to encourage them, it would appear a good plan to establish a poultry-yard in the same field. They are certain to visit the spot.
One day I watched a rook pursuing a swift and making every effort to overtake and strike it. The rook displayed great power of wing, twisting and turning, now descending or turning on one side to glide more rapidly, and uttering short 'caws' of eagerness or anger; but, just eluding the heavy rush of its pursuer, the swift doubled and darted away before it, as if tempting the enemy to charge, and then enjoying his disappointment. Several other swifts wheeled above at a distance, apparently watching. These evolutions lasted some minutes, rook and swift rising higher and higher into the air until, tired of being chased, the swift went straight away at full speed, easily outstripping the rook, which soon desisted from the attempt to follow.
When birds are thus combating, the chief aim of each is to get above the other, as any elevation gives an advantage. This may be continually noticed in spring, when fighting is always going on, and is as characteristic of the small birds as the larger. At first I thought it was a crow after the swift, but came to the conclusion that it must be a rook because the battle began over the rookery and afterwards the aggressor sailed away to where some rooks were feeding. Nor would a crow have exhibited such agility of wing. Swallows often buffet a crow; but this was a clear case of a rook attacking.
In the country rooks never perch on houses, and but seldom on sheds, unless fresh thatched, when they come to examine the straw, as also on the ricks. But in Brighton, which is a treeless locality, a rook may sometimes be seen on a chimney-pot in the midst of the town, and the pinnacles of the Pavilion are a favourite resort; a whole flock of rooks and jackdaws often wheel about the domes of that building. At the Chace a rook occasionally mounted on a molehill recently thrown up and scattered the earth right and left with his bill—striking now to one side and now to the other. Hilary admitted that rooks destroyed vast quantities of grubs and creeping things, but was equally positive that they feasted on grain; and indeed it could not be denied that a crop of wheat almost ripe is a very favourite resort of a flock. He had seen rooks carry away ears of wheat detached from the stalk to an open spot for better convenience. They would follow the dibbling machine, taking each grain of seed-wheat in succession, guided to the exact spot by the slight depression made by the dibble.
Every evening all the rooks of the neighbourhood gathered into vast flocks and returned to roost in the woods of the Chace. But one winter afternoon there came on the most dense fog that had been known for a length of time, and a flock of rooks on their way as usual to the Chace stopped all night in a clump of trees on the farm a mile from the roosting-place. This the oldest labourer had never known them do before. In the winter just past (1879-80) there were several very thick fogs during sharp frost. One afternoon I noticed a small flock of starlings which seemed unable to find their way home to the copse where I knew vast numbers of them roosted. This flock as it grew dusk settled in an elm by the roadside, then removed to another, shaking down the rime from the branches, and a third time wheeled round and perched in an oak. At that hour on ordinary days the starlings would all have been flying fast in a straight line for the copse, but these were evidently in doubt and did not know which direction to take.
Hilary disliked to see the wood-pigeons in his wheat-fields: the wood-pigeon beats the grains out of a wheat-ear with the bill, striking it while on the ground. The sparrows, again, clear the standing wheat-ears, which at a little distance look thin and disarranged, and when handled are empty.