260 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



not destructive of pheasants' eggs, now, however, the 

 closely-trimmed hedge banks, with their occasional 

 fringes of quickset, have settled the question with a 

 vengeance ! The pheasant will too often select a very 

 exposed situation for its nest, and when it begins 

 laying before the leaf is expanded, as it generally does, 

 there is nothing out of the covers and hedgerows to 

 conceal the eggs from prying eyes, not even " a friendly 

 crop of weeds;" the consequence is that the rooks have 

 yielded to temptation, and in carrying out " the good 

 old rule the simple plan, that they shall take who 

 have the power," they have latterly devoted much 

 more of their attention than they formerly did to this 

 source of their supplies ; and they have actually learnt 

 to beat along every hedge bank so systematically and 

 perseveringly, that a pheasant's nest must be very cun- 

 ningly concealed indeed to escape them. A hundred 

 and thirty eggs and upwards have been known to be 

 thus discovered and carried off by the rooks, in three 

 or four fields where the fences are trimmed within 

 strictly agricultural limits ; and a few years ago a 

 rook, whose photograph ought to have found a place 

 in every keeper's album, was absolutely seen to take 

 an egg from under an unresisting hen pheasant, as the 

 latter was sitting on her nest, which the impudent 

 thief was known to have visited before. Another 

 instance of this, in an aggravated form, occurred no 

 longer ago than last spring, when a rook was seen to 

 alight on the back of a pheasant in her nest and 

 violently tear out her feathers Avith his beak till she 

 fled from her assailant, and of course left him to help 

 himself leisurely to her eggs. 



Next in point of numbers, as well as in ornithological 

 order, comes the cunning Jackdaw (Corvus Monednla). 

 This is a very common bird here, and it would appear 

 that nearly every individual in the parish makes his 

 home in the Park ; some of the reasons for this may 

 be gathered from the following extract from a letter 

 written in 1860. 



