78 ROOK. 



For evil is wrought by want of thought, 

 As well as want of heart. 



Hood. 



There are much better and much cheaper remedies than 

 strychnine, for the protection of seed corn from fungus disease ; for 

 example, a solution of copperas, or of carbolic acid, which can be 

 got from any druggist ; and these, too — especially the latter — will 

 protect the corn from the Rooks themselves, as well as from blight 

 and smut. In the name, then, of self-interest, as well as of 

 humanity, let the safer dressing be used. 



Rooks sometimes amuse themselves by soaring high in the 

 air, and dropping suddenly down on each other, playing at " break- 

 neck," boys call it. 



Behold the Rooks, how odd their flight, 

 They imitate the gliding Kite, 

 And seem precipitate to fall, 

 As if they felt the piercing ball. 



In common country belief, this game of theirs indicates the 

 approach of wet and stormy weather. 



Rooks are sometimes observed to be perfectly white, albinos, 

 though generally they have only some white feathers about them. 

 The Rev. Thomas Woodhouse observed two so white that he at 

 first sight took them for Pigeons, though feeding and consorting 

 with their sable fellows. 



Rooks, like all their kind, are long-lived birds, and the 

 experience of age may give them command. 



Never tho' my mortal summer to such length of years should come, 

 As the many winter'd Crow that leads the clanging rookery home. 



Tennysox — Locksley Hall. 



The straight flight of the Rooks to the woods they roost in, 

 has given rise to the proverb, " As the Crow flies," to indicate the 

 shortest distance between two places by an imaginary straight 

 line. The same evening flight forms one of the closing objects of 

 notice on an English summer evening. Many of our poets, besides 

 Shakespeare, make allusion to the flight of Rooks to their roosting 

 trees. 



