246 NOTES ON THE ROOK. 



previously alluded to, — its valuable services would cause it to be considered 

 far too expensive an article for tlie purpose. 



What intense agony must the fond parents endure on witnessing the 

 wholesale slaughter of the scarcely-fledged young birds, whose bodies, ac- 

 cording to annual custom, are made to serve as targets for the merciless 

 gunner to practise upon. How terrible to the sight must be the flash ! How 

 dreadful in the ears of the unhappy parents must sound the report from each 

 piece, followed as that flash and that report is, by a scream of pain from the 

 wretched victim, as Avith convulsive energy, or with the tenacity of despair, 

 it clutches and clings to the branch previous to its fall. How must the sight 

 of the bleeding bodies of the young cause the hearts of the parents to bleed ! 

 Poor persecuted birds ! Methinks I hear ye exclaim, in the bitterness 

 of your grief and distress, as ye wheel round and rotmd in circles, powerless 

 to save or even to aid your hapless off'spring, — Monsters of ingratitude ! is 

 this the return ye make us for the unnumbered benefits we daily and hourly 

 bestow upon your race ? Is it for this we have cleared your fields of ginibs, 

 and thus prevented the destruction of your crops ? Was it to have our little 

 ones murdered in cold blood, their bodies pierced, their limbs broken or torn 

 asunder, that we nursed, tended, and fed them — fed them with the very 

 creatures which, if allowed to multiply and increase without interruption, 

 would have worked your utter ruin. Oh ! ingrates as ye are, and blind to 

 your own interests ! from the height at which we soar above you, we look 

 down with amazement and horror ! — horror at the bloody deed, the heartless, 

 wholesale murders ye are committing ; and amazement at the reckless folly, 

 the despite to yourselves ye exhibit in that deed. But for the horrible out- 

 rage upon us, in the cruel destruction of our unoffending off'spring, of which 

 ye are guilty, we could almost find it in our hearts to pity you. Revenge is 

 not in our nature, nor have we need of revenge. Acts of cruelty, deeds of 

 blood, have at all times, and will to all time, avenge themselves The massa- 

 cre of our little ones will be amply avenged — avenged in the failui-e of your 

 turnip, mangold, and other root crops, from the ravages of myriads of Grubs 

 and Caterpillars, whose numbers these little ones would have kept down, had 

 ye not ruthlessly destroyed them. Avenged in the loss of your cereals by 

 whole armies of Wireworms attacking the root. Avenged by troops of Slugs 

 destroying the blade and young shoots of your plants. And when this has 

 come to pass, ye will perchance repent you of your cruelty, your rashness 

 and folly ; and Avhile mourning over your own loss, will peradventure be- 

 think ye of ours ; and wish that ye could restore the life which God, for 

 your benefit, graciously " gave," but which ye, with the basest ingratitude, 

 and most wanton cruelty have " taken away." 



February 21th, 1855. 



