THE COMMON ROOK. 179 



always dark and sombre ; it has its periods of fes- 

 tivity also. When the waters retire from meadows 

 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 pos- 

 sess of discovering their food, is very remarkable. 

 I have often observed them alight on a pasture of 

 uniform verdure, and exhibiting no sensible ap 

 pearance of withering or decay, and immediately 

 commence stocking up the ground. Upon inves- 

 tigating the object of their operations, I have found 

 many heads of plantains, the little autumnal dan- 

 delions, and other plants, drawn out of the ground 

 and scattered about, their roots having been eaten 

 off by a grub, leaving only a crown of leaves upon 

 the surface. This grub beneath, in the earth, the 

 rooks had detected in their flight, and descended to 

 feed on it, first pulling up the plant which con- 

 cealed it, and then drawing the larvae from their 

 holes. By what intimation this bird had dis- 

 covered its hidden food we are at a loss to conjec- 

 ture ; but the rook has always been supposed to 

 scent matters with great discrimination. 



injurious extent, by our half-famished birds; but they appeared to 

 return to their common food upon the relenting of the frost. . 



N 2 



