92 NOTES ON THE ROOK. 



there are ten thousand Rooks, that one pound of food per week is a very 

 moderate allowance for each bird, and that nine-tenths of their food consists 

 of worms and insects. Here then, if my data be correct, there is the enormous 

 quantity of four hundred and sixty-eight thousand pounds, or two hundred 

 and nine tons of worms, insects, and their larva3 destroyed by one single 

 Rookery." From this valuable extract, some idea may be formed of the 

 utility of the Rook to mankind. The same writer says, "I will mention 

 another proof of the utility of the Rook. A flight of locuds visited Craven, 

 and they were so numerous as to create considerable alarm among the farmers 

 of the district. They were soon, however, relieved from their anxiety, for 

 the lioolcs flocked in from all quarters by thousands and tens of thousands, 

 and devoured them so greedily, that they were all destroyed in a very short 

 time." Amongst our notes we find a newspaper scrap bearing the date of 

 1841, in which it is stated that the vegetation on the mountain of Skiddaw 

 was nearly all devoured by an enormous quantity of caterpillars, and that 

 the farmers of the neighbourhood became alarmed for the safety of their 

 corn crops, etc., but the Rooks found them out, and in a short time 

 put an end to their fears. Bradley relates an instance of the inhabitants of 

 a certain village destroying all the birds around them, by setting a price 

 upon their heads. The consequence the following year was, that the whole 

 of their crops were attacked by insects, and that they were glad to offer a 

 greater reward for their (the birds') protection j and we are told that a whole 

 district in Germany was nearly deprived of its corn harvest by having destroyed 

 their Books. When frosts and snows prevent their getting into the open 

 fields for snails, slugs, and insects, they have recourse to our highways for 

 their scanty meal, which has thus been described by the poet Cowper: — 



"The very rooks and daws forsake the fields, 

 Where neither grub, nor root, nor earth-nut, now 

 Repays then- labour more; and, perclicd aloft 

 By the wayside, or stalking in the path, 

 Lean pensioners upon the traveller's track, 

 Pick up their nauseous dole, tho' sweet to them, 

 Of voided pulse or half-digested grain." 



We learn from a French journal for 1845, that the Prefect of the Lower 

 tSeine gave eficct to the French law enabling magistrates to prohibit the 

 destruction of Grows, Books, and other small birds. It is to be hoped that 

 we English will take a leaf out of the Frenchman's book. What a pity it 

 is that this French law cannot assume the shape of Paris gloves or Lyons 

 silk, for in that case it would soon be followed ! Yet we find that durino- 

 the never-to-be-forgotten French Revolution, the country people, among other 

 causes of dissatisfaction with their superiors, alleged their being fond of having 

 Rookeries near their houses. A mob of these misguided and ignorant people 

 proceeded to the residence of the principal gentleman in their neighbourhood, 

 dragged him from his house, and hung his body upon a gibbet, and then 



