216 GRASS SCARIFIED BY ROOKS. [PART II. 



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, however, was "Oh, no, Sir, we haven't 

 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 or wholesale work done by them as on this 

 occasion. It could not apparently have been exe- 

 cuted more systematically or perfectly by the most 

 elaborate "scarifier" that Crosskill or Ransome 

 could turn out. On examining the spot after- 

 wards I found that the object of the rooks' re- 

 searches had doubtless been a small white grub, 

 numbers of which still remained in the ground a 

 short distance below the surface. In the following 

 spring*! 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. Pos- 

 sibly 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. 

 A sharpish controversy has been maintained 



