As in human communities, the collision of mind with mind contributes fortuitous scintillations of intelligence to their general enlightenment; so gregarious animals, birds and bees seem to acquire especial quick-wittedness from similar intercourse.

The English rook, therefore, is more astute, subtle, and cunning than our American crow, and some of his feats of legerdemain are quite vulpine.
The jackdaw is to the rook what the Esquimaux is to the Algonquin Indian; of the same form, color, and general habits, but smaller in size.

They are as fond of ancient abbeys and churches as ever were the monks of old.

Indeed, they have many monkish habits and predilections, and chatter over their Latin rituals in the storied towers of old Norman cathedrals, and in the belfries of ivy-webbed churches in as vivicacious confusion.
There is no country in the world of the same size that has so many birds in it as England; and there are none so musical and merry.
They all sing here congregationalwise, just as the people do in the churches and chapels of all religious denominations.

As these buildings were fashioned in early times after the Gothic order of elm and oak-tree architecture, so the human worshippers therein imitated the birds, as well as the branches, of those trees, and learned to sing their Sabbath hymns together, young and old, rich and poor, in the same general uprising and blending of multitudinous voices.