60 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR 4GGS AND NESTS. 



Rooks about the fields or winging their morning or evening 

 flight in quest of food, or in return to their domiciles. Most of 

 us too have heard of Rook courts of justice, and the sentences 

 awarded against the wrongful spoilers of a neighbour's nest, as well 

 as the battles to resist such an invasion. It is certainly a remark- 

 able instinct, which, to so great a degree, forbids birds building 

 in communities to plunder the building materials placed on the 

 adjoining bough or ledge, and no wonder that Instinct has 

 providea a remedy for what must be looked upon, when it occurs 

 to any extent, as a somewhat unnatural offence. The Rook 

 resorts to the same nest year after year, merely making such 

 repairs as a year's wear and tear from wind and rain and accident 

 have rendered necessary. When the nest is ready, four or five 

 eggs are deposited, of a greenish ground colour more or less 

 intense in snade, plentifully mottled and blotched with darker 

 nnd varying shades of brownish green. Many of the eggs 

 strongly resemble those of the Crow, while others are much 

 more like those of the Jackdaw. As in the case of the Bullfinch 

 the Rook is often blamed for doing mischief which was really 

 done by the creature which formed the real object of search to 

 the supposed offender. The wireworm and tne grub of the 

 cockchafer do infinite damage in grass or cornfields by eating off 

 the roots of the plants in question. The Rook pulls up these 

 ruined plants ana eats the offending larva. The farmer or 

 superficial observer only sees the dead grass or corn plant, and 

 foolishly accuses the Rook, and persecutes him, though in reality 

 a friend and benefactor, to the death. Not but what the Rook does 

 mischief at times ; for I have often seen newly sown corn-fields 

 black with them, and have been continually a witness to the 

 very extensive damage done to the potato crop just when the 

 young tubers were in most active growth and most susceptible of 

 harm. Still, a few precautions will suffice to protect both corn- 

 field and potato-crop during the brief space while protection is 

 necessary, and the balance of good done is so greatly on the 

 predominating side, that the Rook may well continue to be 

 protected. Rook shooting has charms for many. For myself I 

 seem to see cruelty so conspicuous about the whole process, that 

 I cannot conceive in what the pleasure consists. Fig. 6, plate V. 



121. JACKDAW (Corms monedula). 

 Daw, Kae, Jack. The chattering Jackdaw is as familiar as a 

 "Household word" to us, and when one visits an extensive colony 

 of Jackdaws in the nesting season, he is apt to be enabled to form a 

 good estimate of the amount of chatter a few score Jackdaws can 

 contribute. They breed in many places in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of my residence in very considerable numbers, in the holes 



