Rooks are said to be more abundant in England than in any other part of the world, although they are found in most temperate regions of Europe and Asia; they do not, like many of the Corvine, or Crow family, increase toward the north, but on the contrary, decrease in that direction: in the Scottish islands they are not to be met with. They are strictly gregarious birds, immense numbers of them building and rearing their young together. Almost every English Village, or Hall, or old Manor House, has, or at one time had, its "Rookery," where, on the tops of the tall elms or other lofty trees, the sable birds delight to build their large loose nests of sticks, cemented together with clay, and lined with grass and root fibres. There do they hold their noisy councils, morning and evening, but especially at the latter time, before retiring to rest. One would think they had all the affairs of the nation to settle, so long and loud is the debate, or at least that there must be an immense deal of quarrelling about the right to this or that resting-place; and more fighting, too, than there ought to be, among a decent feathered community. There is something pleasing about the _caw_ of the Rook, whether heard in the dreamy quietude of nature, or, as it often is, amid the bustle of the busy town; it is a sociable bird, friendly to man and his belongings. It is an English bird--a _home_ bird, and reminds us of domestic scenes and pleasures. We have had rookeries in the very hearts of cities; there was one in the Temple Gardens, in London, close by the stream of life which ever flows and reflows up and down the Strand and Fleet Street. Not many years since it was stated in the papers that, "in the small church-yard of St. Peters, Westcheap, situated in Wood Street, Cheapside, stands a solitary tree, in the lofty branches of which, two pairs of Rooks have built themselves nests, and are now busily engaged in rearing two broods, which have been recently hatched." But volumes might be written, as they have been, about Rooks and rookeries; Leigh Hunt, and Charles Lamb, and Washington Irving, and nearly all the English poets, might be called in to give their tribute of praise to this old familiar friend and companion of our life-journey. The Rooks are frugal nest-builders; they make the same structure do year after year. Early in March they begin to repair their old habitations, which, during the winter, we may see far up amid the naked branches, like so many bundles of dry sticks; the young pairs, we suppose, build new ones, unless they should find a nest left vacant by the removal, by death or otherwise, of parents or other relatives, for all the community must be closely allied. "Where, in venerable rows, Widely waving oaks enclose The moat of yonder antique hall, Swarm the Rooks with clamorous call; And, to the toils of nature true, Wreathe their capacious nests anew,"