They listened to the feeble cawing of young rooks swinging on the branches.

He almost stopped, his heart's beating in his effort to hear the voices of the birds, and at last he caught the harsh cawing of the crows for a moment, and then that died away, and he could hear no sound but the voice of the clergyman in long clothes talking perfunctorily to O'Neill, the wife-murderer, in the next cell.

'One day in the beginning of March, coming back from a long walk on the hills, I heard the bleat of the lamb and the impatient cawing of the rook that could not put its nest together in the windy branches, and as I stopped to listen it seemed to me that something passed by in the dusk: the spring-tide itself seemed to be fleeting across the tillage towards the scant fields.

Muffled cawings and piteous cries told me that the poor old rooks were mourning for their children.

There was no sign of life, and not a sound save the occasional cawing of a rook.

Afterwards they become more silent, and apparently more solitary, but still fly out to their feeding-grounds morning and evening; and if you sit down in the woods near one of their nests, the uneasy choking chuckle, ending at last in the outright cawing of the disturbed owner, will generally be answered from every point, and crow after crow come edging up from tree to tree to see what is the matter.

While thus engaged, their attention was attracted by the peculiar "cawing" of a crow that flew over the shop, and, a moment afterward, a whole chorus of the harsh notes sounded in the direction of the woods.

In the spring the flocks are more noticeable, hovering about some grove of pines, flying straight up in the air and swooping down again with an uninterrupted cawing,seemingly a sort of crow ball, with a view to match-making.