NOTES ON THK ROOK. It^ 



display much care and tenderness^ and no disturbance takes place till the 

 young are nearly fledged, when — 



"Their soitows now begin, 



"Wliich briefly mourns my muso, 

 Some villain bold, and at the dead of night, 

 Whose callous heart feels not of natui-e's pangs, 

 Hurls down from genial beds the feathered brood, 



And deals destruction round. 



In vain from towering heights the parents' cry 

 Would force compassion from th' unharden'd breast; 

 Alas! their host heare not the painful moan; 

 He sleeps, and wakes but to deplore their loss." 



Why such a vulgar prejudice, or a still more vulgar notion of their being 

 delicious eating, should contribute erroneously to the destruction of these 

 lively and useful creatures, to us is strange, for with all the beefsteak or fat 

 bacon, they are to u,s but poor eating. To some of your readers this may 

 appear trivial, and they may argue that it affords them great pleasure to go 

 Book- shooting, and that if they were not in some measure destroyed in this 

 way, we should be over-crowded, to the destruction of our property. Such can 

 never be the case: the Great Almighty, in his admirable arrangements, has 

 provided against anything of this kind occurring. Ijook, for instance, to the 

 quantity of the bird genera which are existing in the world 5 it surpasses all our 

 power of enumeration, at least as to any real distinct conception of the amount, 

 for we can only pen down the words billions, trillions, quadrillions, and such 

 like augmentative terras, in which all comprehension soon becomes lost in 

 mere verbal sound and confusive obscurity. Yet with all these birds we find 

 no crowding, no confusion, no revengeful wars; this enormous amount is 

 nowhere visible to our senses. "Who but an Almighty could have arranged 

 such multitudes of living and ever-moving beings in positions, limitations, 

 and habits so wisely appropriate to each— so productive of comfort to every 

 one? The truth is, the further we inquire into the laws of animated nature, 

 the more are we surprised at the beautiful arrangements that have been 

 made for each other's enjoyment. No idea can be more erroneous than for 

 man to suppose that the animal creation was made for the purpose of being 

 subservient to him; in nothing is his ignorance and self-conceit so obnoxious 

 as in upholding such an idea, although maintained by philosophers of all 

 ages. 



But it is now high time we should return to the Eookery. When un- 

 molested, the old birds use every artifice in their power, by parental example, 

 to induce their young to leave the nest and perch upon its edge, and then, 

 by farther encouragement, to the branches adjoining; having succeeded so far, 

 they next induce them to take short flights from the breeding-trees, as soon 

 as they can flutter, at which time it is not unusual to see one of the 

 juveniles make a false step, by which it is precipitated to the ground, if it 

 is not fortunate enough in its descent to hold fast by a twig. If it should 



