38 RAVENING BOOKS 



leisurely fashion, as occasion arises for fodder; yet, 

 assuredly, had rooks been landlord's game, the country 

 would have resounded with angry clamour about them 

 long ere this. 



The fact is, what to do with our rooks is becoming 

 a difficult question in the north. Up to a certain, or, 

 to speak more precisely, an uncertain point, the farmer 

 is entitled to count them among his allies, by reason 

 of the number of grubs and other pests that they 

 devour. But there is certainly a measure beyond 

 which this bird ought not to be allowed to increase. 

 In England rooks are kept fairly in check, because 

 rook-shooting is a favourite amusement in spring. A 

 pitiful sight it is, to be sure, the massacre of a colony 

 just at the period when the law protects most breeding 

 birds; and the only justification for it is that of 

 necessity. In Scotland it is far otherwise. There, 

 nobody ever thinks of shooting rooks for sport, and 

 few people do so from motives of police. The conse- 

 quence is that they are multiplying beyond all due limits; 

 they have the marauding propensity of the crow tribe, 

 and other and more beautiful or interesting species 

 are suffering from their depredations. I feel rather 

 bitterly on this matter just now, having had to mourn 

 last spring the loss of a nest of Canadian wood-duck 

 eggs, pilfered by a pair of these swarthy miscreants. 

 True, there are sinister whispers abroad that the 

 mischief was wrought by jays, which, as described 

 above, we have succeeded in re-establishing in Galloway, 

 a district whence they had been absent for centuries. 



