ROOKS. 257 



May ; for at no period of the year is there a greater 

 probability of obtaining food than now : the general 

 moisture of the season, and universal business of 

 turning up the ground, preparing for the barley 

 crop, &c., on every farm, exposes multitudes of 

 worms and grubs, so that supply is abundant 

 everywhere. Should the young be produced later, 

 when the plough would be more at rest, and the 

 heats of June and July dry up the ground, suffi- 

 ciency of food would with difficulty be obtained, and 

 the broods be in want. That universal diet, too, 

 the worm, in mild weather, seeks the surface of the 

 earth, and is obtained by all who require it ; when 

 the soil becomes dry, heated, or chilled, it retires. 

 Yet, occasionally, some unfortunate pair of these 

 birds will reconstruct their edifice, and when their 

 congeners have left the trees, this solitary couple 

 have all the parental duties to perform ; and the 

 constant clamour of the young for food, so unusual 

 in nestling birds, renders it manifest that the labour 

 and exertion of the parents cannot supply a suffi- 

 ciency for their requirements. This habit of birds 

 in forming a second establishment, after the first 

 has been destroyed, is in conformity with that uni- 

 versally diffused ordination of the great Creator, 

 to continue the species : it is an effort, but com- 

 monly an unsuccessful one, the numbers produced 

 being frequently fewer than in the first case, and 

 the advance of the season rendering it difficult to 

 bring up even those brought forth. It is very 

 pleasing to observe how timed and regulated all 



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