244f Remarks on the Rook {Cormsfrugilegus), 



a good glass (this puts me in mind of the Professor's sugges- 

 tion of a thermometer and a stop-watch, p. 102.), and you will 

 see that he merely pulls up the tuft of grass with the point of 

 his bill. When on arable land, he will be observed to thrust 

 his bill comparatively deeper into the mould, to get at the 

 corn, which having just put up its narrow greenish white leaf, 

 the searcher is directed by it to the sprouted grain. But he 

 cannot be at this work above a fortnight: the progress of 

 vegetation then interferes to stop the petty plunderer. 



The quao of South America, a bird of the order of Pies, 

 has a still greater portion of the forehead bare ; and it must 

 have put on this uncouth and naked appearance in early 

 youth, for, on inspecting the head, you will see that feathers 

 have once been there. 



I could never, by any chance, find this bird in the cultivated 

 parts of the country. It inhabits the thick and gloomy 

 forests, and feeds chiefly upon the fruits and seeds which 

 grow upon the stately trees in those never-ending solitudes. 

 In fine, I consider the accepted notion, that the rook loses 

 the feathers of its forehead, and those at the base of each 

 mandible, together with the bristles, by the act of thrusting 

 its bill into the ground, as a pretty little bit of specious 

 theory, fit for the closet ; but which, in the field, " shows 

 much amiss." 



For my own part, I cannot account for the nudity in 

 question. He who is clever enough to assign the true cause 

 why the feathers and bristles fall oiF, will, no doubt, be able 

 to tell us why there is a bare warty spot on each leg of the; 

 horse; and why some cows have horns, and some have 

 none.* He will possibly show us how it came to happen 

 that the woman mentioned by Dr. Charles Leigh' had horns 

 on her head ; which horns she shed, and new ones came 

 in their place. Perhaps he will account for the turkey's put- 

 ting out a long tuft of hair, amid the surrounding feathers 

 of the breast. Peradventure he may demonstrate to us 

 why the bird camichi, of Guiana, has a long slender horn 

 on its head, and two spurs in each wing, in lieu of having 

 them on its legs. By the way, who knows but that some 

 scientific closet-naturalist may account for these alar spurs 



* Why have pigs six or more small circular pits, about a quarter of an 

 inch apart, and ranged in a longitudinal, not transverse, row, on the inner 

 face of one fore leg ? Occasionally, the inner face of each fore leg is 

 marked with a row of these ; and, rarely, the pits or punctures are more 

 or less perfectly absent from both. They are, I believe, never observable 

 on either of the hind legs. On the fore leg, or, as it may be, legs, they 

 may be readily observed, just after death, when the butcher is depilating 

 these parts. — J. D. 



