Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/395

Rh the present list, bad not my friend Professor Macgillivray enumerated grain as being an article of its diet, in his excellent work on British Birds (i. 532). It joins the rook and other friendly birds in searching after the insect foes of the farmer; but with us its chief subsistence is obtained on the sea-shore.

The Carrion Crow haunts our fields in pairs throughout the latter months of autumn and winter, until the return of sweet spring recalls him and his dark mate to the upland plantations and hill-sides, where they rear their young in comparative safety. On returning from their summer quarters, they add grain to their bill of fare. I accuse them of occasionally digging up the winter-sown wheat, but whether to partake of larvae or the germinated grain, I cannot tell. Almost every spring a pair or two attend pretty closely upon our flocks during the lambing season; and although I have ever looked upon them with suspicion, since reading Mr. Hogg of Stobohope's interesting account of the severe losses they inflict upon the Peebles-shire store -masters, (see Macgillivray's 'British Birds,' i. 521), yet I have not been able to bring any charge of murdering ewes and lambs against them, nor am I aware that our hill shepherds bear them any grudge on this score. They are great favourites of mine, and I really wish they were more numerous, for the Laird and his keeper are well able to fight their own battles. No one who has ever marked his noble mien—his courteous bowings to his mate before making the woods ring out with his joyous cawings, can resist admiring the bird around whose life and conversation prejudice and ignorance have thrown a dark cloud.

The Jackdaw. No jackdaws haunt the ruined piles in the neighbourhood of this farm; nor do they visit our fields in any considerable numbers. In company with the rooks I have observed them pulling up young wheat, barley and oats, and plundering the stacks in summer and the corn-fields in autumn. I have never seen the jackdaw digging potato-sets, and upon the whole I consider him a useful bird, and wish I were better acquainted with his habits.

The Rook. During open weather in winter, the rook subsists upon such insect food as the plough turns up, or can be found in pastures and beneath the droppings of cattle; but when hard weather comes, he haunts the stack-yard, and gleans nutritious particles along the roads, and from the dung-hills which the provident farmer now forms in his fields for next year's green crops. The famished birds congre-