592 APPENDIX. 



of the pigeon. People in this part of the country peril their necks 

 for a dozen of young rooks, even at the risk of a penalty for trespass. 



In 1814, eight tailors and a tailor's boy left Wakefield on a 

 Saturday night, to enjoy a fiddling party at a village called Hims- 

 worth, some six miles hence. In returning home on Sunday morn- 

 ing at three o'clock, they were seized with a vehement desire of 

 looking into my rookery. The keeper surprised them in the act of 

 helping themselves, and as he knew personally the major part of 

 them, they consented to appear before me. The fellow had a touch 

 of a wag in him, and he introduced them thus : " If you please, sir," 

 said he, "I have catched eight tailors and a half stealing young 

 rooks." "Well," said I, "after all this noise on Sunday morning^ 

 you have not managed to bring me a full man " (for we all know in 

 Yorkshire that it requires nine tailors to make a man); "send them 

 about their business ; I can't think of prosecuting eight-ninths and 

 a half of a man." 



The faults of the rook, in our imperfect eyes, are as follows : - 



It pulls up the young blade of corn on its first appearance, in 

 order to get at the seed grain still at the root of it. The petty 

 pilfering lasts about three weeks ; and during this period we hire a 

 boy at threepence a day, sometimes sixpence, to scare the birds off. 

 Some years we have no boy at all. Either way, the crops are appar- 

 ently the same in quantity every year. In winter the rook will 

 attack the corn-stacks which have lost a part of their thatch by a 

 gale of wind. He is a slovenly farmer who does not repair the 

 damaged roof immediately ; and still, we have farmers in Yorkshire 

 of this description. 



The rook certainly is too fond of walnuts, and it requires to be 

 sharply looked after when the fruit is ripe. 



In breeding time it will twist off the uppermost twigs of the Eng- 

 lish and Dutch- elm trees, and sometimes those of the oak in which 

 its nest is built, for the purpose of increasing it. This practice gives 

 the tops of the trees an unsightly appearance, and may injure their 

 growth in the course of time. Sycamores, beeches, firs, and ashes 

 escape in great measure the spoliation. 



It ought to be generally known, that, in former times, the North 

 American colonists, having banished the Grakles (their rooks), the 



