488 Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 



the seed is ready to drop out, they could hardly reach it, and even 

 then a portion only would be accessible ; the scales themselves could 

 not, I conceive, be detached, unless they were partially decomposed ; 

 unfortunately, the proceedings of the birds, subsequent to their carry- 

 ing off the cones, have not been watched*. 



Great meetings of rooks, before the breeding season commences, 

 have been alluded to by authors, some of whom consider that the 

 object is to settle preliminaries respecting that important period — of 

 the correctness of this idea I have little doubt. These assemblages 

 are sometimes long continued. During four weeks in the year 1 837 — 

 from January 21st to February 17th — whenever I happened to ride 

 between two and three o'clock in the direction of two rookeries, I 

 always saw, at a place intermediate between them, and about a mile 

 distant from each, extraordinary numbers, amounting certainly to 

 several thousands ; more than I conceive the two rookeries could 

 furnish — a third rookery, about a mile and a half distant, must, I 

 imagine, have likewise contributed its numbers. Although they 

 closely covered fields of all kinds (pasture, meadow-land and ploughed 

 ground), they were not congregated for the purpose of feeding, not 

 more perhaps than one in a hundred being ever so engaged. Again 

 they would be all on wing at such a height as to look no larger 

 than swallows, and keeping within as limited a space in the air as 

 they had occupied on the earth. 



As remarked by Mr. Macgillivray, rooks " seem to calculate upon 

 the protection which they usually receive in the neighbourhood of 

 their breeding-places." Here it is highly interesting to observe 

 them become fellow-labourers with man when the plough is at work, 

 closely following its track to consume the destructive insect larvae 

 which are turned up ; thus performing an important office that the 

 lords of creation could not accomplish for themselves. At such 

 times too, as if conscious of the good in which they are engaged, 

 they admit of a near approach, and their finely polished plumage has 

 a beautiful effect as it glances like burnished metal in the sun. 

 Their time of roosting varies a little, according to the afternoon 

 being bright or gloomy. On the 10th of August 1837, I remarked 

 a great number busily employed in feeding at some distance from 

 the rookery so late as seven o'clock in the evening : the day through- 

 out had been dull and dark. 



I was informed by Richard Langtry, Esq., in the spring of 1831, 



* Mr. Blackwall, in his 'Researches in Zoology' (p. 156), remarks, 

 that " rooks in the autumn frequently bury acorns in the earth, probably 

 with the intention of having recourse to them when their wants are more 

 urgent." It is added, that they sometimes forget where they have concealed 

 them. Mr. Jesse too states, that these birds ** are known to bury acorns, 

 and I believe walnuts also, as I have observed them taking ripe walnuts 

 from a tree, and returning to it before they could have had time to break 

 them and eat the contents. Indeed, when we consider how hard the shell 

 of a walnut is, it is not easy to guess how the rook contrives to break them. 

 May they not, by first burying them, soften the shell?, and afterwards return 

 to feed upon them?" (Gleanings in Nat. Hist., 1st series.) 



