THE ROOK 71 
ground, suddenly raises a stick. They will instantly fly off, 
evidently in great alarm. 
While the young are being reared, the parent birds frequent 
corn-fields and meadows, where they search about for those plants 
which indicate the presence of a grub at the root. Such they 
unscrupulously uproot, and make a prize of the destroyer concealed 
beneath. They are much maligned for this practice, but without 
reason ; for, admitting that they kill the plant as well as the grub, it 
must be borne in mind that several of the grubs on which they feed 
(cockchafer and daddy-long legs) live for several years underground, 
and that, during that period, they would if left undisturbed, have 
committed great ravages. I have known a large portion of a bed 
of lettuces destroyed by a single grub of Melolontha, having actually 
traced its passage underground from root to root, and found it 
devouring the roots of one which appeared as yet unhurt.» Clearly, 
a Rook would have done me a service by uprooting the first lettuce, 
and capturing its destroyer. 
I must here advert to a peculiar characteristic of the Rook 
which distinguishes it specifically from the Crow. The skin sur- 
rounding the base of the bill, and covering the upper part of the 
throat, is, in the adult birds, denuded of feathers. Connected 
with this subject many lengthy arguments have been proposed 
in support of two distinct opinions: one, that the bareness above 
mentioned is occasioned by the repeated borings of the bird for its 
food; the other, that the feathers fall off naturally at the first 
moult, and are never replaced. I am inclined to the latter view, 
and that for two reasons: first, if it be necessary (and that is not at 
all clear) that the Rook, in order to supply itself with food, should 
have no feathers at the base of its bill, I believe that nature would 
not have resorted to so clumsy a contrivance, and one so annoying 
to the bird, as that of wearing them away bit by bit: and, secondly, 
the bare spot is, as far as I have observed, of the same size and 
shape in all birds, and at all periods of the year, a uniformity which 
can scarcely be the result of digging in soils of various kinds, and 
at all seasons. I cannot, therefore, but think that the appearance 
in question is the result of a law in the natural economy of the 
bird, that the feathers are not rubbed off, but fall off, and that 
they are not renewed, because nature never intended that they 
should grow there permanently; if not, why is there no 
similar abrasion in the Crow? The number of lambs eaten by 
Crows is very small after all, ana pirds’ eggs are not always in 
season, nor is carrion so very abundant; so that, during a great 
portion of the year, even Crows must dig for their livelihood, and 
the great distinction between a Crow and a Rook is, that the former 
has actually no bare space at the base of his bill. But the question 
is still open, and the reader may make his own observations, which 
in Natural History, as well as in many other things, are far better 
than other people’s theories. 
