Further on her two tame rooks cawed joyously, and alighted on her shoulder.

There are so many leaves, and they are so close together, that they hide the great brown rooks' nests.

She breathed not the delicious fragrance of the new-mown hay, nor listened to the distant lowing herds, the bleating sheep, or the cawing rooks.

He professes "no cure no pay," as well he may, for if nature does the work, he is paid for it; if not, he neither wins nor loses; and like a cunning rook lays his bets so artfully, that, let the chance be what it will, he either wins or saves.

Hedges wherein the birds can hide their nests are few and far between in the wall country, so the keen-eyed rook spies out many a nest in the spring of the year.

The Cathedral, with its four towers, rises from among the clustered cottages like a giant rook, split by the lightning and worn by the rains of centuries is into a thousand fantastic shapes.

For instance, the grave and aristocratic rooks, if transported to our country, would turn up their noses and caw with contempt at our institutionseven at our oldest buildings and most solemn and dignified oaks.

And now the only sounds I hear Are the hoarse rooks upon the walls, And horses stamping in their stalls!

Only the inky rook, Hunched cold in ruffled wings, Its snowy nest forsook, Caws of unnumbered Springs.

The park is of great extent, and contains fine forest trees which form a woodland beneath the hill, so extensive as to afford shelter for innumerable rooks.

It stands on an isolated rook, rising perpendicularly two hundred feet above the sea, and connected with the cliffs of the mainland by a narrow arch of masonry.

He dropped down again with a look of relief, and said, ''Tis but a lad scaring rooks with a blunderbuss; we will not stir unless he makes this way.' A minute later he said: 'The boy is coming straight for the wall; we shall have to show ourselves'; and while he spoke there was a rattle of falling stones, where the boy was partly climbing and partly pulling down the dry wall, and so Elzevir stood up.

At length the day approach'd, his wife must die: Imagine now the doleful cry Of female friends, old aunts and cousins, Who to the fun'ral came by dozens The undertaker's men and mutes Stood at the gate in sable suits With doleful looks, Just like so many melancholy rooks.

But about the dawn dreams twitter and arise, and circling thrice around the Happy Isles set out again to find the world of men, then follow the souls of the sailors, as, at evening, with slow stroke of stately wings the heron follows behind the flight of multitudinous rooks; but the souls returning find awakening bodies and endure the toil of the day.

The poet Hood writes of it as "'The tall, abounding elm that grows In hedgerows up and down, In field and forest, copse and park, And in the peopled town, With colonies of noisy rooks That nestle on its crown.' "Some of these English elms are very ancient and of an immense size; one of them, known as the 'Chequer Elm,' measures thirty-one feet around the trunk, of which only the shell is left.

Gilbert felt the charm of the hour; the air still and mild, the silence only broken by the cawing of palatial rooks; and whatever tenderness towards John Saltram there was lurking in his breast seemed to grow upon him as he drew nearer to their lodgings; so that his mood was of the softest when he opened the little garden-gate and went in.

The long walks, the talks of the monastery, the neighbours, the pet rooks, and Sammy the great yellow cat, and the green-houses ...

And now I see the outside of our house, with the latticed bedroom windows, and the ragged old rooks' nests dangling in the elm-trees.

How sad the grand old castle looks! O'erhead, the unmolested rooks Upon the turret's windy top Sit, talking of the farmer's crop; Here in the court-yard springs the grass, So few are now the feet that pass; The stately peacocks, bolder grown, Come hopping down the steps of stone, As if the castle were their own; And I, the poor old seneschal, Haunt, like a ghost, the banquet-hall.

This was refreshing to the eye after having seen nothing but bare rook for many days.

But in what state? Not contracted, upheaved, and hardened to slates and grits, as they are in Wales and elsewhere: but horizontal, unbroken, and still soft, because undisturbed by volcanic rooks and earthquakes.