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 church-yard,
which, like other distant colonies, has already thrown off allegiance
to the mother country.
The rooks are looked up 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.
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