:o2 THE ROOK'S BILL. 



rather obscure process, having become aberrant, they made an ap- 

 proach or passage to the wings ; while the bird itself was progressing 

 in the circle or leading round, in order to inosculate with the pos- 

 teriors of its antecedent. He who clearly comprehends the quinary 

 system will readily understand this. 



If I had time just now, I would call in question the propriety ot 

 the assertion, that the rook " is furnished with a small pouch at the 

 root of the tongue ; " and I would finish by showing the reader that 

 the author of the Second Edition of " Montagu " was dozing when he 

 deprived the rook (Corvus) of the good old sensible epithet frugilegus, 

 and put that of praedatorious in its place. 



We read in Rennie's " Montagu's Ornithological Dictionary," that 

 " the rook is furnished with a small pouch at the root of the tongue." 

 If the carrion crow were as useful to man, as the rook is known to 

 be ; if the jay and the magpie had less to answer for, on the score of 

 petty plunder; and if the jackdaw did not expose itself to persecu- 

 tion by its prying and suspicious habits, they would all be allowed 

 by man to range at large without molestation; and then the naturalist 

 would have that opportunity of examining their economy, which at 

 present is denied him. 



Amongst many peculiarities in these birds, scarcely known or even 

 noticed, he would observe that at a certain time of the year, and only 

 then, they all have, at intervals, an appearance of a pouch under the 

 bill, quite as well defined as that which is seen in the rook. The 

 idea would then occur to him, that ornithologists have either said 

 too much, in stating that the rook is furnished with a small pouch at 

 the root of the tongue ; or too little, in not telling us that the carrion 

 crow, the jay, the magpie, and the jackdaw, are supplied with a 

 similar convenience. The real matter of fact is this, that naturalists 

 err when they ascribe a pouch to the rook. Though at times there 

 is an actual appearance of a pouch under the bill of the rook, and 

 also under the bills of the other birds just enumerated, still, upon a 

 close inspection, it will be seen that there is no pouch at all in any 

 of them. The young of all birds, from the size of the thrush to that 

 of the wren, are satisfied with a single worm at one feeding, or with 

 two at the most. Thus, in fields and gardens, we see an old bird 

 catch an insect, and fly awav immediately with it to the nest. But 



