Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/397

Rh charge invaded. No sooner do the tender leaves appear on the top of the drill, than the rook digs downwards to get at the remains of the set, or the young tubers, as the ease may be; and as the young stalk gains strength, the thief seeks its help to dislodge his prey. The crop is never safe from his ravages until the plants are large and strong, and the roots and tubers are well protected by being earthed up. I do think that rooks must labour under a scarcity of food about the beginning and middle of summer, for they attack stacks with a voracity very far surpassing that which they display in wintry snow-storms, and that, too, in the most knowing manner. When a stack is stripped of its thatch, the top or peak is the only part where the ears of grain are intentionally exposed; and it is here that the sagacious birds dig through the thatch and riot in the prize, and by so doing expose the whole structure to the injurious rain. If the coast is dangerous, they carry off an ear or two at a time to some quiet place, returning again and again for a fresh supply. Do rooks prefer potatoes to every other food?—is a proposition which I beg to offer to out-door naturalists. The data supplied by my own note-book, are too few to enable me to draw a satisfactory conclusion. This season our potato-crop never recovered the effect of the heavy rains which fell between the middle of May and the end of the second week in June, and the fields required to be protected from the rooks until the end of August. Again in October, 1839, just when we had finished carrying the potato-crop, a long succession of wet weather prevented the ploughs from entering the field till the January following; during all that period a considerable quantity of gleanings lay exposed on the surface untouched by the rooks, and none were ever seen to alight on the field, which stretches away in front of the farm cottages. In the end of July, when the hay-harvest is finished, the seeds of rye-grass scattered by the side of the largest ricks afforded them a choice supply of food. When the grain begins to ripen in August, they feed on oats and barley with avidity, wheat not being held in such esteem. Their fondness for barley is commemorated in a local district: they also partake of carrion at all seasons of the year. On the whole the rook must be numbered amongst the farmer's best friends: it is too true that his ravages at times pull hard upon one's purse-strings, but who can estimate the benefits which he confers upon our labours? In proportion as a true knowledge of our insect foes increases, so much the more will the unjustly maligned rook rise in our estimation. I regret that candour obliges me to say so much against him, whilst at the same time I acknowledge my inability to do justice to his merits.