CORVID.E. 229 



shoot one of the delinquent Rooks arid hang it up 

 over the nest that had suffered most ; not that I am 

 much in favour of shooting Rooks on any slight pro- 

 vocation, but in this instance an example seemed to 

 be necessary, and the effect was certainly good. 



The Rooks I find also constant attendants when 

 I feed my tame Gulls, and they never miss an oppor- 

 tunity of pouncing down from some neighbouring 

 tree upon anything they take a fancy to, and their 

 fancy seems to extend nearly to anything, from a 

 piece of bread or potato to a half-picked leg of a 

 rabbit or chicken, or even a bit of cold mutton fat. 



From the correspondence which I before said 

 arose in the ' Zoologist ' on the food of the Rook I 

 have made out the following somewhat varied list of 

 articles of consumption : Carrion, anything from a 

 dead rat to a sheep or a horse ; young rabbits, birds 

 and field-mice ; eggs of game and ducks, also those 

 of small birds, the Missel Thrush being specially 

 mentioned (rooks are certainly more destructive to 

 eggs in very dry than in moist damp weather, when 

 other food is plentiful and easily attainable) ; cock- 

 chaffers, numerous sorts of insects and larvse ; 

 worms, grubs and wire-worms ; apples, pears, wal- 

 nuts, seed-corn, ripe corn; potatoes, both newly 

 planted and young, and couch grass. I will wind up 

 this notice of the food of the Rook with the follow- 

 ing quotation from the ' Field,' which certainly goes 

 a long way to prove the usefulness of the Rook, and 



