There is one trait in the character of the rook which is, I believe, peculiar to that bird, and which does him no little credit; it is the distress which is exhibited when one of his fellows has been killed or wounded by a gun while they have been feeding in a field or flying over it. Instead of being scared away by the report of the gun, leaving their wounded or dead companion to his fate, they show the greatest anxiety and sympathy for him, uttering cries of distress, and plainly proving that they wish to render him assistance by hovering over him, or sometimes making a dart from the air close up to him, apparently to try and find out the reason why he did not follow them. . . . I have seen one of my labourers pick up a rook which he had shot at for the purpose of putting him up as a scarecrow in a field of wheat, and while the poor wounded bird was still fluttering in his hand, I have observed one of his companions make a wheel round in the air, and suddenly dart past him so as almost to touch him, perhaps with the last hope that he might still afford assistance to his unfortunate mate or companion. Even when the dead bird has been hung, _in terrorem_, to a stake in the field, he has been visited by some of his former friends, but as soon as they found that the case was hopeless, they have generally abandoned that field altogether. When one considers the instinctive care with which rooks avoid any one carrying a gun, and which is so evident that I have often heard country people remark that a rook can smell gunpowder, one can more justly estimate the force of their love or friendship in thus continuing to hover round a person who has just destroyed one of their companions with an instrument the dangerous nature of which they seem fully capable of appreciating.[151] The justice of these remarks may be better appreciated in the light of the following very remarkable observation, as an introduction to which I have quoted them. Edward, the naturalist, having shot a tern, which fell winged into the sea, its companions hovered around the floating bird, manifesting much apparent solicitude, as terns and gulls always do under such circumstances. How far this apparent solicitude is real I have often speculated, as in the analogous case of the crows--wondering whether the emotions concerned were really those of sympathy or mere curiosity. The following observation, however, seems to set this question at rest. Having begun to make preparations for securing the wounded bird, Edward says: 'I expected in a few moments to have it in my possession, being not very far from the water's edge, and drifting shorewards with the wind.' He continues:--