263 



At the lime I must confess my belief was 

 entirely opposite to this. Accustomed to seeing these 

 birds feeding day by day in the fields by digging in 

 the soft ground, and then wending their way in the 

 dusk to their distant roosting place, I had, for want of 

 better knowledge, formed the superficial opinion that 

 their food consisted entirely of such worms, grubs, 

 and insects as would be found in and on the ground, 

 and that there had never been any necessity for them 

 to form a "race habit" of laying by for times of 

 scarcity. So when I saw my tamed Rook making his 

 little caches I was surprised as well as interested, and 

 rashly jumped to the conclusion that he was initiating 

 the custom on his own account, and entirely unin- 

 fluenced by race habit. I had never reflected that there 

 must be times when the field food would necessarily 

 run short, and that there was no reason', either anato- 

 mical or physiological, why the Rook should not be 

 as omnivorous as the rest of the Corvidae. As a matter 

 of fact I know now that under unusual stress it is not 

 only omnivorous but will actually kill for food. In his 

 l)eautifully illustrated edition of Gilbert White Mr. 

 R. Kearton tells us that ''during the terribly hard 

 " weather of January and February 1895, rooks took to 

 "preying upon their half starved starling satellites," 

 and that since that time he had seen them trying to 

 repeat the practice. I also believe it is well known 

 that they are fond of walnuts and acorns, and Blackwell 

 (Researches in Zoology, 2nd Kdition, 1873) states that 

 " in the autumn they frequently bury acorns in the 



" earth ; but sometimes forgetting where 



" they have concealed them, they germinate and not 

 "infrequently excite surprise by the singularity of the 



