796 ROSEHILL—ROTCHE 
throughout the middle tract of its ordinary range. More to the 
northward, as in Sweden and northern Russia, it is a regular 
summer-immigrant, while further to the southward, as in southern 
France, Spain and most parts of Italy, it is, on the contrary, a 
regular winter-immigrant. The same is found to be the case in 
Asia, where it extends eastward as far as the upper Irtish and the Ob. 
It breeds throughout Turkestan, in the cold weather visiting 
Affghanistan, Cashmere and the Punjab, and Sir Oliver St. John 
found a rookery of considerable size at Casbin in Persia. In 
Palestine and in Lower Egypt it is only a winter-visitant, and Canon 
Tristram noticed that it congregates in great numbers about the 
mosque of Omar in Jerusalem. 
There are several moot points in the natural history of the 
Rook which it is impossible here to do more than mention. One is 
the cause of the curious shedding on reaching maturity of the 
feathers of its face, and another the burning question whether 
Rooks are on the whole beneficial or detrimental to agriculture. In 
England the former opinion seems to be generally entertained, but in 
Scotland the latter has long been popular. ‘The absence of suffi- 
cient observations made by persons at once competent and without 
bias compels the naturalist to withhold his judgment on the matter, 
but the absence of such observations is eminently discreditable to 
the numerous Agricultural Societies of the United Kingdom. 
ROSEHILL (often corrupted by dealers into ROSELLE), an 
Australian PARAKEE?, Platycercus eximius, so called from the place of 
that name in New South Wales where, if it was not (as is possible) 
first obtained, it was formerly abundant. The nearly allied P. 
icterotis of Western Australia also frequently bears the same name. 
ROTCHE (German or Dutch Rotges?—ostensibly from its ery, 
“rot-tet-tet”), a bird familiar to all Arctic navigators, the Little 
AvK of books, and Mergulus alle of ornithology. It is, or used to 
be, abundant almost beyond belief at many of its breeding-haunts, 
1 It is right to mention that the Canon considers the Rook of Palestine 
entitled to specific distinction as Corvus agricola (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1864, p. 444 ; 
Ibis, 1866, pp. 68, 69). In like manner the Rook of China has been described as 
forming a distinct species, under the name of C. pastinator (Proc. Zool. Soc. 
1845, p. 1), from having the feathers of its face only partially deciduous. 
2 Thus spelt the name is given by Friderich Martens (Spitsbergische oder Groen- 
landische Reise Beschreibung. Hamburg : 1675, p. 61) who voyaged to Spitsbergen 
in a Friesland ship in 1671, and is, like the others used by him, confessedly (p. 55) of 
Dutch origin, though possibly in a German form. Yet the word seems not to be 
recognized as Dutch by authorities on that language. An English translation of 
Martens’s narrative appeared in London in 1694 in an anonymous volume bearing 
the title of An Accownt of several Late Voyages and Discoveries to the South and 
North, dedicated to Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Admiralty and author of the 
well-known Diary, by whom its pubkication was probably instigated. 
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