The Rookery

But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime
In still repeated circles, screaming loud,
The jay, the pie, and e'en the boding owl,
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.

COWPER.

In a grove of tall oaks and beeches, that crowns a terrace walk, just on
the skirts of the garden, is an ancient rookery, which is one of the
most important provinces in the squire's rural domains. The old
gentleman sets great store by his rooks, and will not suffer one of them
to be killed, in consequence of which they have increased amazingly; the
tree tops are loaded with their nests; they have encroached upon the
great avenue, and have even established, in times long past, a colony
among the elms and pines of the churchyard, which, like other distant
colonies, has already thrown off allegiance to the mother-country.

The rooks are looked upon by the squire as a very ancient and
honourable line of gentry, highly aristocratical in their notions, fond
of place, and attached to church and state; as their building so
loftily, keeping about churches and cathedrals, and in the venerable
groves of old castles and manor-houses, sufficiently manifests. The good
opinion thus expressed by the squire put me upon observing more narrowly
these very respectable birds; for I confess, to my shame, I had been apt
to confound them with their cousins-german the crows, to whom, at the
first glance, they bear so great a family resemblance. Nothing, it
seems, could be more unjust or injurious than such a mistake. The rooks
and crows are, among the feathered tribes, what the Spaniards and
Portuguese are among nations, the least loving, in consequence of their
neighbourhood and similarity. The rooks are old-established
housekeepers, high-minded gentlefolk that have had their hereditary
abodes time out of mind; but as to the poor crows, they are a kind of
vagabond, predatory, gipsy race, roving about the country, without any
settled home; "their hands are against everybody, and everybody's
against them," and they are gibbeted in every corn-field. Master Simon
assures me that a female rook that should so far forget herself as to
consort with a crow, would inevitably be disinherited, and indeed would
be totally discarded by all her genteel acquaintance.

The squire is very watchful over the interests and concerns of his sable
neighbours. As to Master Simon, he even pretends to know many of them by
sight, and to have given names to them; he points out several which he
says are old heads of families, and compares them to worthy old
citizens, beforehand in the world, that wear cocked hats and silver
buckles in their shoes. Notwithstanding the protecting benevolence of
the squire, and their being residents in his empire,