BOOK. — Conms fnigilegus. 



former, and has lately revived with tenfold vigour, the subject being the cause and effect 

 of the naked white skin which is found at the base of the Eook's beak. Before proceed- 

 ing further, we will just say a word or two on these interesting discussion. 



Firstly, as to the relation in which the Eook stands to mankind with regard to its 

 conduct. It is thought by many persons of practical experience that the Eook is 

 one of the greatest enemies to the farmer, eating up his gi-ain as soon as planted, 

 pecking up his potatoes and devouring all the " sets," boring holes in his turnips, and 

 altogether doing exceeding mischief in the fields. The farmer, therefore, detests the 

 " blackening train" of Books with a very heartfelt hatred, and endeavours by all kinds of 

 contrivances, such as scarecrows, boys with noisy claj)pers, and loud voices, or even 

 the gibbeted dead bodies of slaughtered Eooks, to keep them off his grounds. Whenever 

 he can find a chance he shoots them, but the bird is so cautious that very few Eooks fall 

 victims to the agricultural gun. The gamekeepers also hate the Eook as a persecutor of 

 their charge, and in truth the Eooks have been actually seen engaged in the destruction 

 of young partridges, and one of them was shot with the prey still in its beak. 



iMoreover, the Eook has been seen to attack a hen pheasant while sitting on her eggs, 

 to pull the feathers out of the mother bird, and to destroy the eggs, having evddently 

 been attracted to the spot by the large bunch of hay-grass amid which the nest had been 

 placed, and which had been left standing by the mowers in order to afford a shelter to the 

 poor bird. 



So much for the one side of the question ; we wiU now proceed to view the Eook 

 from a more favourable point of view. 



The advocates of this bird (of whom I confess myself to be one) do not deny that 

 the Eook is on occasions somewhat of a brigand, and that it has small scruples when 

 pressed by hunger in eating eggs or the young of other birds. Also they fully admit that 

 it pidls up a great number of green corn blades almost as soon as they show their emerald 

 tops above the dark soil, that it digs up the potatoes, and throws the fragments about the 

 ground, eating no small number of them, and that it often bores a turnip so full of holes 

 that it pines away and dies. But although granting thus much, they yet think the Eook a 

 most beneficial bird to the agriculturist. 



