THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



ARE THE FEATHERED 



TRIBES BENEFICIAL TO THE FARMER, 

 OR OTHERWISE? 



At the Knighton Farmers' Club, Dr. Davis, of Knighton 

 read the following important paper: — 



" Not being, I am anrry to say, a practical farmer myself, I 

 have no observations of my own worth submitting to your no- 

 tice. Two or three agricultural neighbours whom I have con- 

 sulted, and one devoted ornithologist, told me that the birds 

 most injurious to the crops in this country are the rook and 

 sparrow. To the consideration of these, therefore, I have con- 

 fined myself. But the observations I have gathered may, as 

 you will see, apply to other tribes of birds ; and as regards 

 them, I have consulted the best authorities I could find. And 

 first, Mr. Yarrell, the writer on British birds, in his chapter on 

 rook3,says : 'The balance between injury or benefit derived from 

 rooks by the agriculturist is a question which general opinion 

 seems to have settled, by considering that the original injury 

 is much more than counterbalanced by the amount of benefit 

 conferred by the consumption of thousands of destructive 

 grubs of the common cockchafer, and of the wireworms of 

 several sorts. These, and probably many others equally in- 

 jurious to vegetation, are searched for and devoured with 

 avidity, forming a very large proportion of the food of this 

 very numerous species of British birds. Early in the morning 

 rooks visit meadow-land, while the grass is yet wet with dew, 

 and break their fast on worms and slugs, which the moisture 

 of that period induces to crawl forth. Later in the day, they 

 may be seen either searching newly-ploughed ground for the 

 various insects there exposed, or again visiting pastures for 

 similar purposes. There they are accused of injuring the 

 grass by pulling it up by the roots : but it has been stated^ 

 and I believe truly, that this is an error arising out of the fol- 

 lowing circumstance : In searching for grubs which are con- 

 cealed in the earth, and supported by eating the roots of the 

 grass, the rook pulls at the blade of grass with its bill ; and 

 when the grass comes up readily, the bird knows that there 

 are under it insects which have destroyed its roots, and in this 

 way detects them : but if the blade of grass is firm, the rook 

 goes to another part of the ground. In a field where grubs 

 are abundant, the rooks scatter the grass everywhere, so as to 

 give the appearance of having rooted it up, while they have 

 only exposed the depredations of the insects by which the 

 roots were destroyed.' The author of the ' Journal of a Natu- 

 ralist,' Mr. Knapp, speaking of the readiness with which rooks 

 detect the places where grubs are sure to be found, says : ' I 

 have often seen them alight on a pasture of uniform verdure, 

 and exhibiting no sensible appearance of withering or decay, 

 and immediately to commence stocking at the ground. And 

 the rooks seem to have learned by experience how to select 

 those plants which are most likely to afford them some recom- 

 pence for the trouble they take in grubbing them up.' Mr. Jesse, 

 in his instructive ' Gleanings,' says : ' A gentleman once 

 showed me a field which had the appearanca of having been 

 scorched, as if by the burning sun in dry weather. The tu)f 

 peeled from the ground as if it had been cut by a turfing 

 spade ; and we then discovered that the roots of the grass 

 had been eaten away by the larvae of the cockchafer, which 

 were found in countless numbers at various depths in the 

 soil. The field was visited by a great quantity of 

 rooks, though there was no rookery within many miles of 



the neighbourhood, who turned up and appeared to devour 

 the grubs with great satisfaction.'" To prove their utility on 

 other occasions, two or three quotations from the "Magazine 

 of Natural History" were given. "An extensive experiment 

 seems to have been made in some of the agricultural districts 

 on the continent, the result of which has been the opinion that 

 farmers do wrong in destroying rooks, jays, sparrows, and in- 

 deed birds in general, particularly where there are orchards, 

 lu our own country, on some very large farms in Devonshire, 

 the proprietors determined a few summers ago to try the result 

 of offering a reward for the heads of rooks ; but the issue 

 proved destructive to the farms, for nearly the whole of the 

 crops failed for three successive years, and they have since been 

 obliged to import rooks and other birds to re-stock their farms 

 with. A similar experiment was made a few years ago in a 

 northern county, particularly in reference to the rooks, but with 

 no better success. The farmers were obliged to reinstate the 

 rooks to save their crops. In speaking of the continent, I 

 ought to have added that the Chamber of Deputies in France 

 lately passed an act to prohibit the destruction of birds in a 

 particular district. They had been recklessly killed off, and 

 the consequence was that the harvest was destroyed in a greeu 

 state by myriads of reapers in the form of hungry insects. A 

 well-authenticated historical fact is related by Mr. Waterton, 

 the venerable naturalist. The American colonists got it into 

 their heads (in New England Province) that the little crow 

 was a terrible destroyer of their crops, and a reward of 3d. a 

 dozen was offered for its destruction. The useful race of birds 

 was extirpated, but what followed ? The iniects, no longer 

 checked, caused the total loss of the grass ; and in 1749 the 

 colonists were obliged to get hay from Pennsylvania, and even 

 from Great Britain. Then the inhabitants would willingly 

 have given twice as much to bring back the tribe of birds. 

 Other instances of a similar nature are on record. Rooks, also, 

 eat grain, and during the seed time the early-sown grain re- 

 quires to be watched to keep the rooks away. They will also 

 occasionally steal a few cherries and green walnuts, and in se- 

 vere weather peck holes in turnips or potatoes. There is rea. 

 son, however, to believe that the visits of rooks to turnips 

 are beneficial. Fiirmers have suffered great injury of late 

 years, particularly it appears in Hertfordshire and Essex, from 

 the attacks of the large brown grub, the larvae of a very com- 

 mon grey moth called the corn rustic (Agrostis segetium of 

 entomologists), from four to seven of which I have known to 

 be found eating their way into the bulb of one turnip. These 

 the rook eats and keeps under, as it seems his province to 

 do. 'Whenever,' says Mr. Waterton, 'I see a flock of rooks 

 at work in a turnip field, which in dry weather is often the case, 

 I know that they have not assembled there to eat either the 

 turnips or the tops, but that they are employed in picking out 

 a grub, which has already made a lodgment in the turnip.' 

 In short, it appears, that after making the largest probable 

 allowance for their destruction of a portion of the crop of 

 which they preserve the rest, they are still the cheapest 

 labourers employed upon a farm. And it is a great mistake 

 to regard every creature «s an enemy and rival that tastes 

 the food we make use of. \Ve must not forget the sparrow, 

 our smaller enemy. Mr. Knapp, in the 'Journal of a 



