68 BOOKS AND THEIK MORALS 



of the damage wrought upon newly-singled turnips and 

 ripe grain, and many a rookery has been condemned to 

 destruction by game preservers, because these colonies 

 harbour some proportion of egg stealers. The truth is 

 that rook nature, like human nature, ' is a mingle yarn, 

 good and ill together,' and a systematic attempt has been 

 undertaken lately to ascertain which of the two prepon- 

 derates in the average rook. 



But the attempt has not been made in this country. 

 When we Britishers are in doubt on a matter of this kind, 

 we write to the newspapers, and a vast mass of corre- 

 spondence sometimes follows, till editors decline to print 

 any more, and no conclusion is arrived at. They manage 

 things differently in Germany. With the patience and 

 methodical diligence of his nation, Dr. Hollrung of Halle 

 has applied himself to investigating this problem during 

 eleven consecutive years, 1895-1905, performing a post 

 mortem upon the carcasses of no fewer than 4030 rooks, 

 rather more than one rook a day, and carefully analysing 

 the contents of their gizzards. He has now presented 

 his report, which he claims as reassuring to the agricul- 

 ture interest, though it does not touch one of the chief 

 grounds of the farmers' complaint, namely, the uprooting 

 of turnips and other plants. The fact that this is done in 

 pursuit of wire-worms, leather grubs, and other hurtful 

 creatures, does not make less grievous the injury to the 

 crop, seeing that twenty plants may be torn out of the 

 drills before a grub is unearthed beneath the twenty-first. 

 The result of Dr. Hollrung's researches is given by him in 

 tabular form, and, if it could be accepted as a correct 

 balance-sheet, tells somewhat in favour of the rook. 

 Unluckily it will not pass the audit of any field naturalist 



