292 USE OF THE ROOK 



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

 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 pulls 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, yet they think the Rook a most beneficial bird to the 

 agriculturist. 



For its depredations on game they attempt no excuse, but only offer an apology on 

 the ground that the affair is very rare, and that condonation may be granted to the bird in 

 consideration of the great services rendered in other parts of the year. They aver that its 

 object in pulling up the young corn-sprouts is not so much to eat the corn as to devour 

 that pest of the farmer, the terrible wireworm, which lurks at the root of the corn, and infal- 

 libly destroys every plant which it has once attacked. That such has been the case may often 

 be seen by the yellow and unhealthy aspect of the destroyed blades which are left scattered on 

 the ground after the extraction of the wireworm. Potatoes again are attacked by numerous 

 insect foes, and it is to eat these that the Rook unearths the " sets." It is true that bits 

 of potato have been found in the Rook's crop, but in all probability they have been casually 

 eaten together with the insects that are lurking within. The same remark may be made 

 of the turnips. 



Besides performing these services, the Rook saves acres of grass annually from being 

 destroyed by the grub of the common cockchaffer beetle. The grub or larva of this insect 

 is one of the most destructive foes to grass lands, feeding upon the roots and shearing 

 them very nearly level with the surface of the ground by means of its scissor-like jaws. 

 So destructive are these insects, and so complete are their ravages, that a person has been able 

 to take in his hands the turf under which they had been living and to roll it up as if 

 it had been cut with a spade. In one place, the grubs were so numerous that they were 

 counted by the bushel. When it is remembered that this creature lives for three years under- 

 ground, is furnished with a huge stomach, a wonderful capability of digestion, and a formi- 

 dable cutting apparatus for obtaining its food, the services of the Rook in destroying it may be 

 better imagined. Moreover, the beetle is just as destructive as the grub, settling upon trees 

 and fairly stripping them of their leaves. I have dissected many of these grubs, and always 

 found their stomachs distended to the utmost with a mixture of black earth and vegetable matter. 



Again when the ploughman is turning up the soil, how common, or rather how invariable, 

 a sight it is to see the Rooks settling around him, alighting in the furrow which he makes, and 

 seizing the grubs and worms as they are turned up by the share. Not a single worm, grub, or 

 other insect escapes the keen eye and ready bill of this useful bird. Some idea of the extensive 

 character of its operations may be formed from the following remarks by Mr. Simeon, in his 

 interesting work, entitled " Stray Notes on Fishing and Natural History" : 



" I was walking one day with a gentleman on his home farm, when we observed the grass 

 on about an acre of meadow land to be so completely rooted up and scarified that he took it 

 for granted it had been done under the bailiff's direction to clear it from moss, and on arriving 

 at the farm, inquired whether such was not the case. The answer was, however, ' Oh, no, sir, 

 we have not been at work there at all ; it's the Rooks done all that.' The mistake was a very 

 natural one, for though I have often seen places where grass has been pulled up by Rooks, 

 yet I never saw such clean and wholesale work done by them as on this occasion. It could not 

 apparently have been executed more systematically or perfectly by the most elaborate 

 ' scarifier ' that Croskill or Ransome could turn out. 



"On examining the spot afterwards, I found that the object of the Rooks' researches had 

 doubtless been a small white grub, numbers of which still remained in the ground a short dis- 

 tance below the surface. In the following spring I noticed that the part of the field where 

 this had taken place was densely covered with cowslips, much more so than the rest of it. 

 Possibly the roots of these plants may have been the proper food for the grubs, and therefore 

 selected by the parent insect as receptacles for her eggs." 



