If you approach the trio the two old birds at once take flight, seeing your gun, and the young bird in a few seconds goes after them. Had they the sense to repeat this operation, they might often draw the young one away from danger; as for their cawing, it does not seem to be quite understood by their offspring, who have hardly yet learned their own language. To appreciate this effort on the part of the old birds, it must be recollected that immediately after the first shot the great mass of the old rooks fly off in alarm. They go to some distance and then wheel round and come back at an immense height, and there, collected in loose order, circle round and round, cawing as they sail. For an old rook to remain in or near the rookery when once the firing has commenced is the exception, and must be a wonderful effort of moral courage, for of all birds rooks seem most afraid of a gun; and naturally so, having undergone, when themselves young, a baptism of fire. Those that escape slaughter are for the most part early birds that come to maturity before the majority, and so leave the trees before the date fixed for shooting arrived, or acquire a power of flight sufficient to follow their parents on the first alarm to a safe distance. They have, therefore, a good opportunity of witnessing the destruction of their cousins, and do not forget the lesson. Although the young birds upon getting out of the nest under ordinary conditions seem to like to wander, yet if they are driven out or startled by the shot they do not then at once endeavour to make for the open country or to spread abroad, but appear rather to cling to the place, as if the old nests could shelter them. After a while they begin to understand the danger of this proceeding, and half an hour's rapid firing causes the birds to spread about and get into the trees in the hedges at some distance. There of course they are pursued, or killed the next day, three-quarters of a mile or more away from home. It is rare for old rooks to get shot, for the reason above stated: they rise into the air out of reach. Those that are killed are generally such as have lingered in the hope to save a young bird, and are mistaken and shot as young themselves.