CORVID. 229 
shoot one of the delinquent Rooks and hang it up 
over the nest that had suffered most; not that I am 
much in favour of shooting Rooks on any slight pro- 
vocation, but in this instance an example seemed to 
be necessary, and the effect was certainly good. 
The Rooks I find also constant attendants when 
I feed my tame Gulls, and they never miss an oppor- 
tunity of pouncing down from some neighbouring 
tree upon anything they take a fancy to, and their 
fancy seems to extend nearly to anything, from a 
piece of bread or potato to a half-picked leg of a 
rabbit or chicken, or even a bit of cold mutton fat. 
From the correspondence which I before said 
arose in the ‘ Zoologist’ on the food of the Rook I 
have made out the following somewhat varied list of 
articles of consumption :—Carrion, anything from a 
dead rat to a sheep or a horse; young rabbits, birds 
and field-mice; eggs of game and ducks, also those 
of small birds, the Missel Thrush being specially 
mentioned (rooks are certainly more destructive to 
eggs in very dry than in moist damp weather, when 
other food is plentiful and easily attainable) ; cock- 
chaffers, numerous sorts of insects and larve; 
worms, grubs and wire-worms; apples, pears, wal- 
nuts, seed-corn, ripe corn; potatoes, both newly 
planted and young, and couch grass. I will wind up 
this notice of the food of the Rook with the follow- 
ing quotation from the ‘ Field,’ which certainly goes 
a long way to prove the usefulness of the Rook, and 
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