180 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



within the last few years been actively called in question. In the 

 county of Haddington, the members of the agricultural club have 

 made an appeal to various proprietors for assistance in keeping 

 down the number of Eooks by destroying the young birds in the 

 rookeries within their policies, and the result has been that thou- 

 sands of birds have already been destroyed. The same may be 

 said of some other localities where the species has unduly multi- 

 plied. Near Tain, in easter Ross, measures have also been taken 

 lately to reduce its numbers. 



Many naturalists adhere to the belief that Rooks are innocent of 

 the charges usually brought against their allies the crows, and in 

 this they may be right, as the species has always shown a decided 

 partiality for districts which have been laid under cultivation, and 

 formed settlements in the very centre of game preserves, where 

 Rooks are looked upon as privileged birds, and their nurseries as 

 time-honoured accessories to the park scenery of our country. 

 Rookeries, in fact, are so intimately associated with old mansions 

 and baronial halls, that few proprietors would wish to see them re- 

 moved. Hence any little thefts which Rooks may commit in the 

 way of taking the eggs of pheasants or partridges appear to merit 

 no greater punishment than a yearly thinning of their numbers in the 

 breeding season. There can be no doubt that these birds are ex- 

 tremely serviceable to the farmer in devouring grubs, slugs, and 

 noxious insects, and I feel sure that their extermination in any 

 particular district would result in a disastrous increase of larvae 

 and other insect pests, whose ravages cannot be guarded against 

 or watched as in the case of birds. At the same time, it cannot 

 be denied that its near relationship to birds of a bad name has 

 been against the Rook, and that at a time when this country was 

 less cultivated than it now is, its food consisted of articles more in 

 keeping with that connection. We cannot wonder, therefore, if 

 some Rooks of the present day pilfer eggs from the game preserver, 

 or show a partiality for an occasional diet of flesh when it comes 

 in their way. Upwards of four hundred years ago it had apparently 

 a much worse character, if we may judge from the following Act 

 passed in the reign of James II. on 6th March, 1457: 



" Item. Anentis birdes and wilde foules that gainis to eate for 

 the sustentation of man, as pertrickes, plovares, and sik like foules: 

 It is ordained, that na man destroy their nestes, nor their egges, 

 nor zit slaye wild foules in mouting time quhen they may not flie. 



