Birds. 461 



transmit you a packet of these ornithological millstones, col- 

 lected from the pellets found under the trees of the rookery 

 on my premises. 



I have somewhere lately met with an extract from Jesse's 

 Gleanings in Natural History, in which it is contended that 

 the rooks do no injury to the agriculturist. After speaking 

 in just commendation of the rooks, and of their utility in 

 destroying grubs, this pleasing writer goes on to say : — " In 

 order to be convinced that these birds are beneficial to the 

 farmer, let him observe the same field in which his plough- 

 man and his sower are at work : he will see the former fol- 

 lowed by a train of rooks, while the sower will be unattended, 

 and his grain remain untouched." Our own characters, I 

 believe, often suffer by the extravagant and injudicious praises 

 of our friends ; for, when men come to perceive that we do 

 not possess all the good qualities, or at least do not possess 

 them to that extent which we are said to do, they are apt not 

 to give us credit even for those which really belong to us. 

 I fear it may fare the same with the rooks in the present in- 

 stance. Some who read the above erroneous statement, will 

 be likely to condemn the rooks in toto^ and to discredit 

 what is most truly said in their favour, on account of the 

 error mixed up along with it. Mr. Jesse makes the rooks 

 too good by nearly half. They may not follow the sower, it 

 is true, because, as already stated, they prefer the grain when 

 it has become a little swollen, from having been a short time 

 in the ground. But that they do eat grain, the pellets we 

 have been speaking of are an incontrovertible proof. If far- 

 ther evidence were needed, I might mention what occurred 

 to myself this spring. A few days after the oats were sown, 

 my man came to complain to me of the rooks, which, he 

 said, were settling on the newly sown ground in numbers, 

 and pecking up the corn like a flock of chickens. The fact 

 was even so ; and, in corroboration of it, abundance of dis- 

 gorged pellets, consisting of oat husks and brickbats, was 

 soon perceived under the trees of the adjoining rookery. 

 " Keeping crows," as it is called in this part of the country, 

 that is, guarding the newly sown fields from the depredations 

 of rooks, is a very usual occupation for boys and children 

 who are unfit for more laborious employment. Mr. Water- 

 ton himself (the friend and advocate of all wild animals, even 

 of some which are usually accounted vermin) does not deny 

 (p. 102.) the rook's propensity, " if not narrowly watched," 

 to peck a little new-sown corn. Let it not be supposed that, 

 in making the above statement, my object is to injure the 

 character of these useful and amusing birds. On the con- 



