VOL. X.] ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FOR 1916. 231 



in Suffolk. It recalls the invasion of Norfolk and Yorkshire 

 b}^ bands of Pomatorhine Skuas in October, 1879, when 

 many collectors supplied themselves with specimens. 



Food. 



Rook {Corvus f. frugilegus). As Rooks were decidedly 

 troublesome during 1915 and 1916, I should like to offer a 

 few considerations on their supposed merits, which may 

 possibly have been exaggerated. 



At the present time agriculture is a matter of vital im- 

 portance, and the Rook question is again to the front, as it 

 has often been before. It has always seemed an anomaly 

 that hawks in Norfolk, and even owls, should be persecuted, 

 while Rooks go almost unscathed, although there is not a 

 farmer who has a good word for them. 



1. To begin with January : if the weather be mild and 

 open and the land soft enough for ploughing, it may be 

 admitted that the Rooks are doing good. They are supposed 

 to consume every kind of grub which turns up — grubs of the 

 click beetle (Agriotes, wireworm), cockchafer (Melolontha), 

 chovy (PkyUoj^erfha), daddy-longlegs (Tipula), weevils, etc., 

 and especially worms, but the earth-worm by continually 

 turning the soil, does more good than harm. On the other 

 hand, the crane fly {Tipula oleracea) sometimes does vast 

 damage, and here the Rook and the Starling are doing grand 

 service. A naturalist should be the last person to underrate 

 these benefits, although in east Norfolk, Rooks only share 

 them equally with gulls. Inland gulls, and especially the 

 Black-headed Gulls, are better farmers' friends than either 

 the Rook or the Starling. Let the open weather to which 

 we have been alluding change, and the habits of the Rook 

 will quickly change also. If February comes in, as it some- 

 times does, with a hard frost, or March with a canopy of 

 snow, any unthreshed stacks still standing, and wheat-stacks 

 especially, are promptly attacked. It is not the amount 

 of grain eaten which the tenant farmer has to complain of, 

 nor the straws which the Rooks puU out, but it is the holes 

 made in the roofing, for these let in the wet when a thaw 

 comes, and forthwith the sample suffers injury. It is usual 

 for Rooks to commence by pulling out the top straw which 

 has been used to thatch the stack, and when this is done 

 they are able to regale themselves on the grain underneath it. 

 In very sharp weather they burrow holes into the stacks so 

 deep that only the tips of their tails are to be seen protruding, 

 and as for scarecrows, they ignore them altogether. 



