486 Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 



LVII. — The Birds of Ireland. By Wm. Thompson, Esq., 

 Vice-Pres. Nat. Hist. Society of Belfast. 



[Continued from p. 430.] 

 No. 10. — CorvidcB [continued] ; Picidos ; Certhiada. 

 The Rook, Corvus fi'ugilegus, Linn., is as common through- 

 out the cultivated and wooded parts of Ireland as in any 

 other country*. It is generally looked upon by the farmer 

 as an arch enemy, of which he has ocular demonstration, — 

 " the evil that it does " being very apparent in the headless 

 stalks of grain, while its virtues do not in a direct manner 

 come under his cognizance. I have always been disposed to 

 regard the rook as a bird intended by its Creator to check 

 the unwonted increase of the insects most destructive to the 

 vegetation of the field, and keep them within due bounds : 

 both England and the continent furnish us with instances of 

 the almost total destruction of crops in particular districts, 

 consequent on its extirpation. 



The good done by this bird is generally admitted by our authors 

 who have written within the last sixty years, greatly to exceed the 

 evil it commits. The only exception to this which I have met 

 with is Sir Wm. Jardine, who speaks of the good as " at least com- 

 pensating for their destruction or injury to the produce of the fields." 

 It may be possible that in particular localities the "Dr." and "Cr." 

 account ■will about balance. A gentleman whose extensive farm is 

 situated in the valley of the Lagan, and little more than a mile di- 

 stant from three extensive rookeries (his place forming, as it were, 

 the centre of the circle), once remarked to me, that he would rather 

 than ten pounds a year that rooks never alighted on his fields. His 

 charges against them comijrise about the sum total of the evil pro- 

 pensities of the species. They are as follow : — " When the blade 

 of wheat just shows itself above ground, and the pickle of grain is 

 by frost or otherwise rendered accessible, these birds at daybreak 

 pick it off ; when grain is lodged they utterly destroy it, and do 

 serious damage to it when in stooks, not only by eating it, but by 

 carrying away heads of the grain, which are found scattered about 

 the adjacent fields. The potatoe crop too they injure, by picking 

 up the planted ' sets ' in spring whenever accessible, as likewise in 

 autumn the young potatoes ; but only where the crop is thin and 

 poor, as from such bare spots they can have a look-out against ap- 

 proaching enemies : where the foliage is luxuriant they never alight. 

 They sometimes too have attacked the cherries in the garden f." 



* At the more genial period of the year, flocks of rooks occasionally visit 

 the mountain pastures about Belfast. 



f Mr. Jesse, who in liis 'Gleanings of Natural History' treats most agree- 

 ably of rooks generally, and particularly of the Royal rookeries, remarks, that 

 these birds are " sad depredators on my clierry-trees, attacking them early 

 in the morning and carrying oft' great quantities." He is nevertheless sa- 

 tisfied that the good done by the species greatly counterbalances the evil. 



