70 PHEASANTS FOB COVERTS AND AVIARIES. 



pheasants, and, suspecting their object, drove them off. The 

 next morning, having fed and watered the young birds, he 

 went to his cottage, and, looking out about six o'clock, saw a 

 strong detachment of rooks from a neighbouring colony in 

 great excitement amongst the coops. He ran down, a 

 distance of two hundred yards, as fast as possible, but before 

 he arrived they had succeeded in killing, and for the most 

 part carrying off, from forty to fifty birds, two or three weeks 

 old. As he came amongst them they flew up in all directions^ 

 their beaks full of the spoil. The dead birds not carried 

 away had all of their heads pulled off, and most of their legs 

 and wings torn from the body. I have long known that 

 rooks destroy partridges' nests and eat the eggs when short 

 of other food, but have never known a raid of this descrip- 

 tion. I attribute it to the excessive drought, which has so 

 starved the birds by depriving them of their natural insect 

 food that they are driven to depredation. It will be necessary 

 to be on guard for some time ; bad habits once acquired may 

 last even more than one season. Probably the half-dozen 

 rooks first seen amongst the coops tasted two or three, and, 

 finding them eatable, brought their friends in numbers the 

 next morning." 



Since the issue of the later editions much evidence has been 

 accumulated respecting the destruction of eggs and young 

 pheasants in preserves by rooks. In the spring of 1897, at 

 the residence of Sir Walter Gilbey at Elsenham, it was 

 discovered that the rooks had suddenly taken to the destruc- 

 tion of the eggs of the tui-keys which were allowed to breed 

 in the open, and three nests had been desti-oyed during the 

 nighty the rooks being caught at their evil work by the 

 keeper and one of the visitors. No less than fifty eggs had 

 been destroyed, those only escaping on which the hens were 

 sitting. Having destroyed the whole of the turkey eggs 

 available, the rooks then turned their attention to the 

 pheasant eggs in the coverts, the report of the head keeper 

 the next morning being that the eggs that had been left and 



