100 CORVIM. 



The attempts occasionally made by man to interfere with 

 the balance of powers as arranged and sustained by Nature 

 are seldom successful. " An extensive experiment appears 

 to have been made in some of the agricultural districts on 

 the Continent, the result of which has been the opinion 

 that farmers do wrong in destroying Rooks, Jays, Spar- 

 rows, and, indeed, birds in general, on their farms, par- 

 ticularly where there are orchards. In our own country, 

 on some very large farms in Devonshire, the proprietors 

 determined to try the result of offering a great reward for 

 the heads of Rooks ; but the issue proved destructive to 

 the farms, for nearly the whole of the crops failed for 

 three successive years, and they have since been forced to 

 import Rooks, and other birds, to restock their farms 

 with." A similar experiment was made some years back 

 in a northern county, particularly in reference to Rooks, 

 but with no better success ; the farmers were obliged to 

 re-instate the Rooks to save their crops. The subject was 

 facetiously commented upon in a pamphlet by James Stuart 

 Menteath, Esq., of Closeburn. 



Mr. Jesse, in the second volume of his Gleanings in Na- 

 tural History, makes the following remark on this subject : 

 " In order to be convinced that these birds are beneficial 

 to the farmer, let him observe the same field in which his 

 ploughman and his sower are at work. He will see the 

 former followed by a train of Rooks, while the sower will 

 be unattended, and his grain remain untouched." 



The food of the Rook, as already shown, consists prin- 

 cipally of worms and various sorts of insects, which, from 

 the numbers of the birds themselves, must be consumed to 

 an enormous extent. During the farmer's seed-time, if 

 other food is scarce, the newly-sown grain requires to be 

 watched to keep the Rooks away ; they will also occasion- 

 ally steal a few cherries, or green walnuts, and in severe 



