FEBRUARY 35 



doubts are allowed to affect the verdict of M. Herman 

 and Miss Owen, who affirm boldly that ' the harm done 

 is outweighed a thousandfold by the good which rooks 

 do in the destruction of insects.' Hm ! a thousandfold 

 is a good lot, isn't it ? 



Still more is one made to pause before accepting 

 the guidance of these writers by their advocacy of the 

 hooded crow, to which they give a place among birds 

 'chiefly useful/ Now, of all the fowls of the air, 

 probably none is less entitled to consideration than the 

 hooded and the carrion crows. M. Herman admits that 

 the first steals chickens, kills leverets, robs nests, destroys 

 young maize, devours fruit and quantities of young 

 game. But then, says the special pleader, as to 

 chickens ' the good mother-hen flies at the marauder 

 and raises a cry that brings out the good people of the 

 house . . . and the crow has to beat a retreat ... or 

 run the risk of having a wing broken by a stone, a 

 rolling-pin, or other missile.' And so on through all 

 the list of admitted misdemeanours, against which is 

 to be set the fact that the culprit will eat worms, grubs, 

 insects, and mice. This is the sort of mischievous 

 nonsense that defeats its own purpose, for people who 

 read such flimsy excuses for notorious evil-doers will 

 incline to be sceptical about the virtues rightly attri- 

 buted to such vigilant police as the plover, the cuckoo, 

 and other soft-billed birds. 



All the more strange is it that these writers, who 

 plead for the protection of rapacious vermin, should 

 denounce one of the most valuable and beautiful of our 

 waterfowl. 



