150 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



posterior extremity (about one inch from the vent) 

 with two caeca, which lay parallel with the main gut, 

 and were of unequal lengths, the longer one measur- 

 ing eight lines, the other six : the upper part of the 

 intestinal canal, nearest the stomach, was of a much 

 more red and florid appearance than the rest ; this, 

 however, may have been owing to some slight acci- 

 dental inflammation. 



Rooks will occasionally prey on fish. A relative 

 of mine once saw a rook take a fish out of the piece 

 of water in Kensington Gardens, and devour it on 

 the bank. He told me he had seen jackdaws do the 

 same in the Thames.* 



Varieties of the rook occasionally occur here, as 

 in other places. In the spring of 1823 , we picked 

 up two young birds alive under the nests, just 

 fledged, in which each feather was tipped with dirty- 

 white, giving the whole plumage a speckled appear- 

 ance. One of them, also, had a single claw that was 

 snow-white. These birds were found in different 

 parts of the rookery, and did not appear to have 

 belonged to the same brood. 



* Mr. Blackwall has observed that the carrion crow also 

 devours fish, " particularly eels, in pursuit of which it wades into 

 the shallow water of rivers and brooks that flows over beds of 

 stone and gravel ; seizing the object of its search with the bill and 

 conveying it to land, where it is eaten at leisure." Ann. and 

 Mag. of Nat. Hist. vol. xv. p. 168. 



