THE COMMON HOOK. 185 



tion, and it will occasionally obtain a good share of 

 these fruits. In hard frost, it is pinched again, 

 visits for food the banks of streams, and in con- 

 junction with its congener the c< villain crow," 

 becomes a wayfaring bird, and seeks a dole from 

 every passing steed. Its life, however, is not 

 always dark and sombre: it has its periods of 

 festivity also. When the waters retire from mea- 

 dows and low lands, where they have remained 

 any time, a luxurious banquet is provided for this 

 corvus, in the multitude of worms which it finds 

 drowned on them. But its jubilee is the season of 

 the cockchaffer (melolantha vulgaris), when every 

 little copse, every oak, becomes animated with it 

 and all its noisy, joyful family feeding and scramb- 

 ling for the insect food. The power or faculty, be 

 it by the scent, or by other means, that rooks possess 

 of discovering their food, is very remarkable. I have 

 often observed them alight on a pasture of uniform 

 verdure, and exhibiting no sensible appearance of 

 withering or decay, and immediately commence 

 stocking up the ground. Upon investigating the 

 object of their operations, I have found many heads 

 of plantains, the little autumnal dandelions, and 

 other plants, drawn out of the ground and scat- 

 tered about, their roots having been eaten off by a 

 grub, leaving only a crown of leaves upon the sur- 

 face. This grub beneath, in the earth, the rooks 

 had detected in their flight, and descended to feed 



