34 BIRDS BENEFICIAL AND BIRDS BANEFUL 



common intelligence and humaneness; but it is mis- 

 chievous to run to the other extreme in attempting 

 to whitewash characters of dubious integrity. Some 

 writers even spoil a good case by special pleading on 

 behalf of notorious marauders. 



That is the blemish in M. Otto Herman's book on 

 Birds Useful and Birds Harmful, 1 which Miss J. A. 

 Owen has translated and done something to adapt to 

 British conditions of crop and climate. For instance, 

 opinion among practical and unbiassed observers of the 

 habits of the common rook is divided as to whether it 

 does more harm or good to the farmer by its mixed 

 diet. My own view is that the balance of good and ill 

 varies in different districts. Much depends upon en- 

 vironment. I have seen immense flocks of rooks 

 streaming into treeless Caithness from oversea during 

 the winter months, alighting in the stack-yards, tearing 

 great holes in the attenuated corn-stacks, in which the 

 snow lodges, and, thawing, destroys a immense quantity 

 of grain besides what these black brigands consume. 

 Some such spectacle as this may have prompted 

 Linnaeus, not prone to give misleading titles, to name 

 the rook Corvus frugilegus, the corn-gatherer. The 

 late Professor Newton, always inclined to give any bird 

 the benefit of a doubt, could not make up his mind upon 

 the evidence, and pronounced it to be ' eminently dis- 

 creditable to the numerous agricultural societies of the 

 United Kingdom' that the question had not been 

 settled long ago by systematic observation. No such 



1 Birds Useful and Birds Harmful. By Otto Herman and J. A. 

 Owen. Manchester : University Press. 1909. 



