82 BRITISH BIRDS' EGGS. 



blade of grass remained standing. The Rooks had pulled 

 up the entire surface of the already dead turf, and were re- 

 galing themselves upon the myriads of grubs which now lay 

 beneath it, which had done all the mischief by eating the 

 roots of the grass asunder ; and, but for the timely inter- 

 ference of these useful birds, another summer's increase of 

 their ranks would have enabled them to carry devastation 

 far and wide/' The food of the Rook consists in general 

 of grains, fruit, roots, worms, slugs, insects, and their larvae. 

 Rookeries are too well known in their leading features to 

 need description, but we may remark that where a breeding- 

 station is established in trees which are deciduous, it is 

 abandoned during the winter, and some pine-wood is sought 

 as a roosting-place at night during that inclement season; 

 but where the nests are built in pines, these trees become 

 the resort of the birds throughout the year. The nests, 

 usually placed, as our readers are aware, upon the topmost 

 branches of the trees, are composed of sticks, cemented with 

 clay, mixed with tufts of grass, and are lined with roots. 

 The eggs, which are green marked with greenish-brown, 

 are four or five in number, and less than those of the Car- 

 rion or Hooded Crows. (PL IV. fig. 1 5.) 



THE JACKDAW. Corvus monedula. The Jackdaw is 



