56 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 
while I dug worms, which she gobbled up with great relish. 
When satisfied, she hopped away to one of the borders, and stood 
in a somewhat drowsy attitude while the process of digestion went 
on. Occasionally, after she had retired in this way, I tried to 
tempt her with fresh worms, which she seemed scarcely able to 
resist ; and once I induced her to eat so many that she could not 
swallow the last one—a pretty big one, by the way—fully half of 
which hung from her bill. Under this course of treatment she 
soon became very stout, and could be distinguished at a glance 
from any others of her kind. When the nesting-season came 
round, she disappeared for several months, but reappeared one day 
in the beginning of winter when the ground had become frozen. 
I was glad to see that she had not forgotten her former benefactor. 
She continued with me for a few weeks ; but one day I missed her, 
and supposed that some cat had fared only too well at the expense 
of my favourite. 
Rook (Corvus frugilegus, Linn.). 
There has been much controversy as to whether the rook should 
be regarded as a benefactor or otherwise, and probably a good 
deal may be said in support of either opinion. Occasionally in 
summer our garden is visited by these birds, and we were puzzled 
_to account for their appearance there until one was detected rising 
from the gooseberry bushes with a green berry in his bill. 
Three summers ago, when passing along the west end of 
Hamilton Drive, I saw a rook settle on a building nearly opposite 
the entrance to Queen Margaret College, and insert its head into 
a sparrow’s nest built in a crevice of some ornamental masonry 
above a doorway. ‘The bird withdrew its head from the nest, and 
flew to the trees on the other side of the drive, carrying something 
in its bill. I watched it settle, and from what I saw of its move- 
ments I had no doubt that it was eating, or, at least, mutilating, a 
young sparrow, which it had taken from the nest. Last summer, 
during the nesting season, I repeatedly noticed that the appearance 
of a rook gave rise to a great commotion among the birds which 
frequent the trees around our garden. Blackbirds, thrushes, 
missel-thrushes, and sparrows seemed greatly alarmed for the 
safety of their young, and united in raising a discordant clamour. 
=) 
At such times the missel-thrush seems especially aggressive, and 
