THE PERCHING BIRDS. 181 



was by no means common a few years ago, and breeds, 

 save in the Shetlands and Outer Hebrides, everywhere. 

 On account, perhaps, of the readiness with 

 which the rook dwells in the midst of cities, it 

 is the best known of the family. There have been rooks at 

 Haverstock Hill and in Kensington Gardens and elsewhere 

 in London for many generations ; and there is a consider- 

 able colony in the centre of Dover town, where I saw the 

 elders repairing their old nests on February 12th of the 

 present year (1897). I understand, from Mr W. N. Wilson, 

 honorary secretary of the " Rugby School Natural History 

 Society," that the members of the Zoological section alw^ays 

 made a feature of annually recording the number of rooks' 

 nests in the Close. Unfortunately the great storm of 

 March 1895 destroyed twenty of the old elms, so it has 

 been useless to continue the record. The adult rook is 

 at once distinguished from the rest of the tribe by the 

 featherless patch of Avhite skin at the base of the bill. 

 This has been attributed to the action of the earth into 

 which the latter is plunged in search of grubs ; but this 

 method of seeking food is also employed by other mem- 

 bers of the family in which the face remains thickly 

 feathered. The young bird retains the face-feathers or 

 bristles until the second moult. The rook is a fowl of 

 sociable habits, both in the nesting-time and during the 

 winter migrations in search of grain. Its morals are those 

 of all the crows, and any falling off in the supply of wire- 

 worm and other noxious grubs, of w^hich (being for the 

 greater part of the year the farmer's friend, as it is un- 

 questionably his enemy for a month or so) it destroys vast 

 quantities, is promptly made up for by a raid on the near- 

 est grain, while even the game -preserver has learnt to 

 dread the bird's taste for eggs and young birds. Dr 

 Sharpe includes walnuts among its favourite food. The 

 nest is, as a rule, completed early in March, but I have 

 noticed that the birds settle down to their duties some- 

 what earlier where the old nest is refurnished. Occa- 



