on for some minutes, puss continually foiled by the bird, which flitted so rapidly, that when she had made her last spring but one and thought she had her victim safe, she found herself gazing upon vacancy, the little bird having conjured itself away to the opposite side of the tree unobserved.

Now puss began to get somewhat tired with her exertions, sat down on a bough, licked her unsuccessful paws, and scratched her puzzled head. Whether or no it was that the birds perceived their assailant to be getting fatigued, I cannot say; but they redoubled their exertions; the hen, which had previously taken no part in the proceedings, but had watched her lord's manœuvres unobserved in silence, now began to utter loud cries, and dare the cat to pursue her. First on one side, then on the other, before and behind, the brave little birds kept enticing puss up and down the branches all over the tree, keeping just out of reach of her greedy claws, till she began to think herself the ill-used party; and, having been drawn on among some twigs at the end of the bough nearest to the window, she caught sight of me watching her fruitless labours, and mewed piteously in my face, as much as to say, "Look at these abominable little birds; what business have they to tease a poor cat?" After jumping and climbing about the tree for nearly a quarter of an hour, she was quite tired.

The redstarts had succeeded in their endeavours, and by their ingenious policy had worn out the strength and patience of their enemy, who, reluctantly descending the tree, came mewing to the window, and rubbing herself up against it, as if to claim sympathy in her want of success. The window was opened, when out jumped a little dog, which had been lying in wait, and, with him at her heels, away scampered puss, who was thus enabled to compare (at the interval of a few seconds) the comparative agreeableness, or disagreeableness, of an unsuccessful chase to pursuer and pursued.

LONDON ROOKERIES.

ROOKS prefer the vicinity of man's abode; they are tied by instinct and by necessity to scenes of cultivation; they love the ploughshare and the harrow, the well-manured corn land and the rich mead. Hence it is that rookeries are so abundant in our island. There is scarcely an old mansion or manor-house that has not its rookery. Innumerable are the villages and small towns which boast of a time-honoured rookery, sometimes on its outskirts, sometimes in its very centre, or around the church. Many are the larger towns wherein a rookery still flourishes; nor will the birds readily forsake the spot even when the trees are cut down, and instances have been known of their resorting, under such circumstances, to an adjacent tower or steeple.

Dr. Darwin records the fact of a whole colony, in 1794, being located on the spire of Welborn Church, in Lincolnshire; and the parishioners affirmed that the rooks had built there from time immemorial. But it appeared that in former times there existed a rookery in some high trees which adjoined the churchyard, and that, on the felling of these, the colony transferred themselves to the church, establishing their nests on the outside of the spire, on the projections above the windows, and even within the spire itself, on any convenient ledge.

A pair of rooks also, many years ago-turned, for some cause, out of an adjacent rookery-built their nests for several seasons above the vane of the spire of the Exchange at Newcastle, which was pulled down in 1793-4. Rejected by the community, they refused to quit the locality, though they had to contend for their rights against persecuting opponents.

And here we may advert to our London rookeries. "London rookeries!" methinks I hear some country reader exclaim, "London

rookeries! what can the writer mean?" He means what he says, "London rookeries." Rooks have ever been partial to London and its environs; and the metropolis, only a few years since, could boast of several rookeries within its precincts. Most of these, however, if not all, have recently been abandoned. London, placed in the rich valley of the Thames, and contracted in its limits, was once surrounded by woods, intermixed with cleared spaces, converted by cultivation into pastures, corn-lands, and gardens; but London by degrees extended itself over what were once fields and gardens, and many a clump of tall trees fell under the stroke of the axe. Thus rookery after rookery disappeared. Still some clumps were spared, as ornaments to enclosed spaces, churches, or mansions. Sometimes these clumps consisted only of two, three, or four trees, and those not of the highest growth, while sometimes only a single tree, out of a coppice or small wood, was left as the memento of a sylvan scene. To these trees, not previously tenanted, the ejected rooks resorted, and from their nests aloft saw London grow throughout long-stretching lines into the old feedinggrounds, and fill up the intervening spaces by piles of brickwork, converting lanes into busy streets, and deforming meadows by mills, founderies, gas-works, and factories, while over all floated a dense canopy of smoke and gaseous elements, beneath which the flowers faded and vegetation withered. Long did the rooks maintain their ground, and submit to the nuisance of a pestilential atmosphere, as well as an increasing difficulty of procuring food. At length one occurrence after another conspired to force the rooks to retreat from their old haunts, and migrate to the nearest suburban districts, there to found new establishments, which, in their turn, will have to be evacuated. Alas! the axe is at work around us, and the axe has done more to drive the rooks from London than all other causes combined. In the time of Dr. Johnson, an old-established rookery, of considerable population, flourished

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in the Temple Gardens-in the gardens of the red and the white roses. A lively, if not a very scientific, account of this rookery is given by Goldsmith in his almost forgotten Animated Nature.' Long after Johnson's day did this rookery continue; but it dwindled by degrees, and it now no longer exists.

There was also a large rookery formerly in the trees of the gardens around Carlton Palace. We ourselves can remember it. From this old establishment the rooks were exiled in 1827, when the trees were cut down, their occupants removing to a clump behind New Street, Spring Gardens, also in its turn deserted. There was even lately a colony of rooks in the trees near Fife House, at the back of Whitehall. For many years, too, rooks built their nests on the churchyard plane-trees of St. Dunstan's-in-the-East; but they suddenly deserted the locality, in consequence, as it is believed, of the fire in 1814, by which the old Custom House was destroyed, and which greatly terrified them. This desertion, however, was only temporary; for the rookery was tenanted before the last church was removed, and consisted of upwards of twenty nests. On the pulling down of the church, in 1829, they transferred themselves to the White Tower, but returned as soon as the noise of axes and hammers had ceased. In 1849, their building materials were hospitably provided for them by Mr. Crutchley, the assistant-overseer. We believe that this rookery now no longer flourishes.

There was formerly a rookery on some large elm-trees, behind the Ecclesiastical Court in Doctors' Commons, which is noticed by Mr. Hone, in his 'Every-day Book.' A large plane-tree, growing in a small courtyard, at the corner of Wood Street, Cheapside, has long been noted for its rooks' nests, to the number of three or four, and which have only lately ceased to be tenanted. A few years since we had an opportunity of watching the birds almost daily, as they went and returned, bringing food to the young. Undisturbed by the city's din, they preserved their usual tranquillity, and pur

sued aloft their avocation. Many were the passengers who, as they hurried along intent upon business, would pause for a moment to gaze on a spectacle at once so novel and interesting as a city-rookery-small, it is true, but still a rookery-in the very heart of London.

Many other examples might be cited, both in London and in its immediate suburbs (as in Kensington Gardens, near the Palace), but the foregoing must suffice for the present.

CHRISTMAS TURKEYS.

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BY THE AUTHOR OF CURIOSITIES OF NATURAL HISTORY.'

FOR several weeks previous to Christmas, there is great excitement among the breeders of turkeys in Norfolk, and other parts of the country; for just at this time hecatombs of these birds are sacrificed as victims to the good old custom of "turkey on Christmas Day."

This noble bird does not lose all traces of his nobility even when roasted and placed on his back on the largest dish in the kitchen; although he is a headless object, and although his legless feet are stuck into the air in a helpless manner, yet he carries his liver tucked jauntily under one wing, his gizzard under the other, and he proudly inflates his noble breast with an abundance of veal stuffing, as if frowning defiance, and anxious to contend for the honours of the day with his rival, the Baron of Beefshire.

We, of the present day, are a privileged race as regards turkeys. King Alfred the Great never had a slice of turkey in all his life; though I will not warrant that many an English bustard from Salisbury and the Yorkshire Downs did not grace his rush-strewn