ROOK. * 77 



Once upon a time, as related by Mr. Stuart Menteath, of 

 Closeburn, the Devonshire farmers and proprietors made war 

 upon the Rooks, set a price upon their heads, and destroyed large 

 numbers. In three successive years the crops failed, and they 

 were thankful to encourage the Rooks and other insect eating 

 birds again. A similar experiment, he also says, was tried in one 

 of the northern counties with the same result. The well-known 

 botanist and naturalist, Lambert, on his death bed, gave with 

 difficulty as his last words to a relative, " Don't neglect the Rooks." 



In most Rookeries the Rooks are shot annually (and very good 

 pies the young ones make, if a beefsteak is put at the bottom of the 

 dish). These shootings considerably check their increase m number ; 

 many perish in winter, if frost and snow should be long continued ; 

 and a very dry spring and summer are very fatal to Rooks. The grubs, 

 worms, and slugs, on which they usually feed, do not come to the 

 surface of the ground. The parent birds perambulate the fields, 

 and wander by the sides of the highways in search of food. They 

 can scarcely maintain themselves, and many nests of young birds 

 perish from starvation. The poor birds are at such times 

 dangerous to young birds of all kinds, and to young rabbits, 

 which they seize to save themselves from starvation. In such 

 Reasons, when moles cannot burrow in the hard ground, they 

 also are killed in great numbers by Rooks, as well as Crows. 

 There is one mode in which numbers of Rooks are often destroyed 

 in the most cruel way. The spring corn is sometimes dressed 

 with a solution of strychnine to preserve it from disease, and when 

 the birds take it, the result is most painful to witness. The ground 

 is strewn with the dead and dying. As many as 150 or even 200 

 have been seen lying in a single small field, and in addition to 

 these, many only reach the rookery to drop down dead beneath the 

 trees. The agony of death from the terrible spasms of strychnine 

 is fearful to contemplate, and when, too, the numerous young 

 birds left to die in the nests from starvation are thought of, the 

 man who can look on unmoved at such a result — it may be of 

 thoughtlessness — is not to be envied — 



