218 THE ROOK. 



grown into forest trees, the Crows have increased there to an 

 astonishing degree, and they have really become a destruc- 

 tive nuisance. In the year 1775 a considerable number of 

 the tenants in the neighbourhood of these woods associated 

 together for the purpose of killing the Crows, and they 

 assessed themselves at the rate of 5s. sterling per plough, 

 and latterly at the rate of 2s. per ditto. Out of this fund 

 they paid a bounty of a penny a head for old Crows ; and 

 in the beginning of the season they paid 2d. per dozen for 

 the young ones ; and as the season advanced, they increased 

 the bounty to 3d., 4d., and 6d. per dozen. The numbers 

 killed between 1779 and 1793 were 17,386 old Crows, and 

 59,269 young Crows, or in all 76,655, at an expense of 

 £142, 14s. 7d. Mr. Eobert Dudgeon, tenant in Tynningham, 

 who paid the bounty and kept the accounts, furnished me 

 with the above particulars ; and he made the following 

 observation, viz., that the expense of the killing of 76,655 

 Crows, amounted to a trifle short of 38s. per thousand, — 

 whereas, if the damage done by a Crow in one year be 

 estimated at Id. only, 1000 Crows commit a waste, in that 

 ratio, of nearly four guineas a year."^ 



Mr. Clay, Winfield, informs me that he has known Rooks 

 pull up three or four acres of young turnips after they were 

 singled ; but this appears to be done to get at the grub at 

 the root of the plant, in the same way as they sometimes dig 

 up grass in pastures. It is believed by many naturalists that 

 where the numbers are kept within reasonable bounds, the 

 good which they do by destroying innumerable grubs and 

 other noxious insects, outweighs the evil. If destructive 

 insects, such as the caterpillar of the grass or antler moth 

 {Charceas graminis), which lately appeared in vast num- 



1 General View of the Agnculhire oj East- Lothian, Edinburgh, 1794, pp. 

 141-143. 



