340 



rNTEODTTCTIOW TO ZOOLOQT. 



such spots, were in reality benefactors, not destroyers. Nu- 

 merous other examples of a similar kind might be brought 

 forward. To these might be added others no less instructive, 

 in which the Rooks in certain districts have been extirpated, 

 so great an increase of the insect enemies of the agriculturist 

 took place, that the crops, for two or thi'ee successive seasons, 

 were utterly destroyed, and the farmers obliged, at some 

 trouble and expense, to reinstate the Eooks in order to save 

 their crops. 



In 1S31 or 1832 we noticed great quantities of the skulls 

 and other bones of Rooks lying on the shores of Lough Neagh, 

 and understood that during a dense fog multitudes of these 

 birds had perished in the waters, and that their bodies had 

 afterwards been drifted ashore. After the great hurricane of 



the 7th of January, 1839, 



many thousands were 

 picked up dead on the 

 shores of a lake some miles 

 in length, in the County 

 of Westmeath, with ex- 

 tensive rookeries on its 

 borders.* 



The wary Magpie, the 

 busy Jackdaw, and the 

 cheerful Jay — a bu-d un- 

 known in the northern 

 parts of Ireland — all be- 

 long to the present family; 

 and various are the petty 

 larcenies which have been 

 laid to their charge. One 

 of the most perplexing oc- 

 curred at Cambridge, where 

 the Daws took a fancy to 

 employ in the construction 

 of their nests, the wooden 

 labels used in the Botanic Garden, for the names of seeds and 

 plants ; and to such an extent did they avail themselves of 

 these materials, that so many as eighteen dozen of labels were 



( 



Fig. 269 — HoKinsrLL. 



« This singular fact was communicated to Mr. R. Ball of Dublin, by 

 Dean Vignolles, ou ^vhose property it occurred. 



