244 Rooks like Insect Food. 



you approach, they are off directly. If you carry a 

 walking-stick only, you may pass within thirty yards 

 sometimes, and they take little notice, provided you 

 use the stick in the proper wa} r . But now lift it, 

 and point it at the nearest rook, and in an instant he 

 is up with a ' caw ' of alarm though he knows it is 

 not a gun and flies just above the surface of the 

 ground till he considers himself safe from possibility 

 of danger. Often the whole flock will move before 

 that gesture. It is noticeable that no wild crea- 

 tures, birds or animals, like any thing pointed at 

 them : you may swing your stick freely, but point it, 

 and off goes the finch that showed no previous 

 alarm. So, too, dogs do not seem easy if a stick is 

 pointed at them. 



Rooks are easily approached in the autumn, when 

 gorging the acorns. They may often be seen flying 

 carrying an acorn in the bill. Sometimes a flock 

 will set to work and tear up the grass by the roots 

 over a wide space perhaps nearly half an acre in 

 search of a favorite beetle. The grass is pulled up 

 in little wisps, just about as much as they can hold 

 in their beaks at a time. In spring they make 

 tracks through the mowing-grass not in all the 

 meadows, but only in one here and there, where the} 7 

 find the food they prefer. These track^ are very 

 numerous, and do the grass some damage. Besides 

 following the furrows made by the plough, and de- 

 stroying grubs, beetles, wireworm, and other pests in 

 incalculable numbers, they seem to find a quantity 

 of insect food in unripe corn ; for they often fre- 

 quent wheat-fields only just turning yellow, and 

 where the grain is not yet developed. Except per- 



