TASTE OF INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 177 



crow,' becomes a wayfaring bird, and * seeks a dole 

 from every passing steed.' During the unusually 

 severe winter of 1829-30 our rooks became certainly 

 ' corn-eaters :' the ground was bound down by the 

 frost, and their favourite food hidden by the snow. 

 They fixed themselves by dozens on the oat-ricks 

 out in the fields ; and the late-sown, just germinating 

 wheat w r as dug up from the soil, to a very injurious 

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

 to return to their common food upon the relenting of 

 the frost. Its life is not always dark and sombre ; 

 it has its periods of festivity 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 cockchafer (Melolontha vulgaris), when every 

 little copse, every oak, becomes animated with it, and 

 all its noisy, joyful family feeding and scrambling for 

 the insect food*." 



A singular circumstance relating to the rook has 

 given rise to some discussion among naturalists. 

 Instead of the projecting feathers which in other 

 species of crows extend from the eyes and the base 

 of the bill as far as the opening of the nostrils, the 

 rook has a bare, almost white, rough, scaly skin. 

 This peculiarity, according to M. Montbeillard, who 

 is followed by Colonel Montagu f, Dr. Latham*, 

 Cuvier, Temminck||, and other naturalists, results 

 from its mode of life ; for in scratching deep into 

 the ground with its bill, this in time becomes rough 

 from the feathers being worn off by continual rubbing. 

 This opinion is supposed to be strengthened by an 



* Journal of a Naturalist, p. 179, 3d edit. 



f Orn. Diet. p. 429, 2d edit. + Gen. Hist. iii. 12. 



Regne Animale, i. 421, edit. 1829. 



II Manuel d'Ornith. i. 111. 





