allowance; but, however it was effected, certain it is she existed, if that can be called existing which must have involved such terrible privations. Winter was her trial season, for then the smallest provision of fuel must have frightfully augmented her distress. In spite of this struggle for life, she scarcely ever alluded to her necessitous condition, and was rather cheerful than otherwise. Her temper was somewhat caustic, no doubt, and perhaps its edge was sharpened by her wants; but she was much too proud to bewail or parade her poverty. It was surprising that her health seemed seldom impaired, either by constant confinement or deficient food. She was never known to go out by day; her marketings were always made after dark, and when she went to any place of worship (she seemed a dissenter), it was to an evening service. She wrote a fair hand, and was not without some knowledge of books, though I never saw any in her apartment except the Bible and a very early edition of Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy." Though not very old, she seemed to be quite alone in the world, but she studiously avoided the slightest allusion to her personal history. Once when I was with her the postman brought her a letter; the charge was 8d., and to pay for it she had to borrow a shilling on some work not quite finished. That circumstance vexed her, but she broke the seal and read it without any obvious emotion, though I fancied that for a moment she grew paler than usual. She made no remark on its contents, folding it without a word.

Who can tell the thoughts and feelings of which the poor hunchback's broken and attenuated frame might be the hiding-place, or measure the acute suffering, apart from physical pain, they might occasion? I always compassionate such quiet martyrs far more than those who are boisterous in their complaints. When I left Ivy-lane, my opportunities of seeing her ceased, though I heard that she continued her unrepining labours for several years, and was

at length found dead, sitting on her stool, and leaning over her tagging cushion on the table, with a lace still grasped in her left hand, the hammer having fallen on the floor.

Sometimes, in an uneasy dream, Jane Peel is an agent. There she sits at her cushion; the hammer falls and rises with notable celerity (she was singularly adroit at her work); tag after tag is fast fixed round the lace; and while I think her day's toil will soon be over,

"A change comes o'er the spirit of my dream,"

and there in her place stands a half-covered coffin, and the undertaker's journeyman driving at the black nails, and in his dismal gaiety singing

"Oh, a pit of clay to be made

For such a guest is meet."

244

THE ROOKS OF LONDON.

We have had a chat about the pigeons of Guildhall, and now a few words respecting the metropolitan rooks may not be unacceptable. Strange that birds, creatures ordinarily so timid, should become accustomed to the bustle of London streets-seeking their food, as sparrows do, amidst cab-wheels, and all the incessant stir and noise of City life.

It is a curious fact in natural history, that most animals have a strong tendency to become friendly to man, and will often do so under the most unfavourable circumstances. The wild dogs in the Arctic regions seek the huts of the settlers, and, on the least encouragement, will become inmates. The rough steed of the prairie, without the coaxings of a Rarey, willingly submits to the rein of the trapper; and the winged denizens of the pathless woods hover round the heads of travellers as if anxious to be noticed by them. Is not this a gracious arrangement of Providence in our behalf? for without the service of the animal creation, many of our wants would be unsupplied; and though the gift of reason gives us control over these dumb servants, should their help always be rendered under constraint, it would make it less valuable.

The rook is an aristocratic and almost an ecclesiastical bird; he loves the grand domains of our old nobility, and is quite at home among the ancient gravestones of country

churchyards; oaks and yews, beeches and chesnuts, with a weight of centuries on their wide-spreading branches, especially attract him, while he is repelled by modern buildings and sapling trees. The taller the trees, and the more abundant the leafage, there look for the best rookery. Even in the day-time these birds delight in shade, and they seem most to luxuriate in time-honoured possessions when the evening sunbeams are kissing the dark foliage, and the shadows of the vast trunks whose green heads they tenant grow longer and longer. Then the continuous "Caw, caw " of a thousand birds, made musical by combination (for the single note is discordant), sounds like a vesper hymn through the gathering mists of night.

There is a fine rookery at Holland Park, Kensington. Its origin dates back several hundred years, when the locality was far removed from "noise and smoke," and now the irresistible influence of habit, season after season, peoples the verdant avenues with the same sooty-feathered race. There will they remain, till the advancing steps of innovation cover the pleasant acres with bricks and mortar, and drive away for ever the rural deities which have so long presided there.

The rook is a gregarious, familiar bird. It often affects the vicinity of populous towns, seeks the neighbourhood of man, and is not scared even by the most smoky atmosphere. This bird may be found over a great part of Europe, but is nowhere more common than in Great Britain. In a northerly progress the rooks decrease, for wooded and cultivated lands are congenial to them. There are none in Orkney, Shetland, Guernsey, or Jersey. They are scarce in Sweden, Denmark, Russia, and Northern Asia. In Italy the rook is a permanent inhabitant, while over the Continent it is only migratory. It has been met with in China and Japan. Rooks feed principally on grain and insects, and amply repay the farmer for his seed by

clearing the ground of wireworms and the larvae of the cockchafer, which are frequently styled rook-worms; and the birds will follow the plough-tail to gather them up. In May and June, when the young begin to fly, they may be traced among the horse-chesnut and other trees, as they pick off the cockchafers in their winged state. Where these birds have been inconsiderately destroyed on account of suspected damage, a total failure of the crops has often followed. They deposit in their stick nests four or five greenish eggs, blotched with brown spots, which are occasionally foisted upon the ignorant as plovers' eggs. Yet a rook's egg is very palatable, and young rooks make an excellent pie-scarcely inferior, indeed, to pigeons. The male is attentive to the female rook while sitting, and feeds her carefully. Both assiduously supply the newly-fledged birds. In the building season they often quarrel about their nests, and frequently visit the nest trees in autumn, on their way to roost at a distance, for the purpose of repairing their old nests, that they may be fit for incubation in early spring. Herons and rooks sometimes have deadly feuds respecting nest trees. Dr. Heysham gives an account of such a battle at Dallam Tower, Westmoreland. Some old oaks tenanted by herons being lopped, they endeavoured to occupy a grove where there was a colony of rooks. The herons got the better, and at length the struggle was settled by the rooks and herons appropriating the opposite sides of the plantation.

The rook has the power of imitating the crow's note, is very docile, easily learns amusing tricks, and is capable of strong attachment. It will mimic the jackdaw's cry and the bark of a dog so closely as to escape detection. White, in the "History of Selborne," says, "A friend had two milk-white rooks in one nest. A carter finding them, while yet unable to fly, destroyed them, much to the owner's regret, for they were a great curiosity. I saw these birds,