250 THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



remarks that a few small colonies still exist near Halifax in spite of 

 steam engines and factories ; Samuel Routh gives me the following 

 information respecting the practice of the Rook in occasionally rejecting 

 indigestible matter from the stomach like the Owls. " There are a 

 number of fields under the plough opposite to my house, and nearly 

 a quarter of a mile o2, some of which are wheat in their regular course 

 of cropping, and being in a retired part they are much infested by 

 Rooks when the ear is filling. Just below these fields are some large 

 grass closes where I can very frequently see the Rooks settle in large 

 numbers ; it was, I think, in 1835 or 6 I had noticed them making 

 sad havoc among the wheat just then filling in the ear, and on going 

 over a part of a grass close, where I had the evening before observed 

 the Rooks congregated, I was a good deal puzzled with a number 

 (perhaps six or seven) of singularly shaped pellets about the thickness 

 of a walnut and about two inches long, they were smaller considerably 

 at one end than the other, and covered with a dry mucous coating, 

 very thin. On breaking them I found them composed of the husks 

 of wheat quite free from moisture or kernel, and intermixed throughout 

 with small pieces of stone, chiefly lime, and one or two little bits of 

 brick. It very soon occurred to me, from seeing the Rooks there 

 previously in great numbers, and having seen them before upon the 

 wheat, then in a milky state in the ear, that these pellets must be 

 ejected by them, to which I was led also by their form. I mentioned 

 the circumstance to my friend Thos. Gough of Kendal, who was much 

 interested with the supposed fact, for I have no other proof that 

 it is one. After a good deal of research I believe he has found the 

 same kind of pellets. A year or two after I found the same things 

 again in the same field, and exactly at the time when the wheat was 

 in a milky state in the ear, but with this difference ; the last I found, 

 instead of the chaff being mixed all through the pellet with portions 

 of lime or stone, it was mixed throughout with portions of a wing of 

 a kind of beetle, the wing pieces appeared to me (not being an 

 entomologist) all fo one kind and colour." 



The Rook is, without doubt, the most abundant of our 

 larger inland birds, and is not absent even from the desolate 

 moorland tracts, for in the dales and on the high fells of the 

 west and north-west it is met with in the most barren situations 

 while on foraging expeditions. In timbered districts few 

 country residences are complete without a " Rookery " ; 

 there is, therefore, no necessity to enter into details respecting 

 the distribution of such a common species, which is one of 

 the most familiar birds of the county. 



As an immigrant from the Continent, however, it is not 



