HARM BY ROOKS. 171 



earth of those insects that would destroy vegetation, 

 such as the grubs of the chafers, and the young of 

 GafFerlonglegs, which are very destructive to many 

 roots, especially turnips and clover, yet there are cases 

 in which they do a great deal of harm. It has been 

 noticed that they dig up potatoes ; and they sometimes 

 do it so early in the season as that the plants are en- 

 tirely destroyed, because the fibres of the root have 

 then no connection with the stem, save through the 

 planted seed. That seed, when the young plant is just 

 above the surface, has lost its farinaceous quality, and 

 is pulpy and sweet ; in that state the crows eat it with 

 great eagerness, and probably prefer it to their usual 

 food, as they detach it from the ground and gorge it 

 with much apparent satisfaction. When wheat and 

 barley are in the same state sprouted, but the seed 

 malty and abounding with saccharine matter they are 

 almost equally fond of these, and sometimes render the 

 crop nearly a failure, though for one field that they 

 waste in this way, they probably save a dozen by the 

 destruction of larvse. 



It is also pretty generally understood that rooks eat 

 the eggs of other birds ; and from the range of their 

 appetites, there is not the least doubt that they do so, 

 if the eggs come in their way. Larks, pipits, and other 

 birds that build upon the ground, are most liable to its 

 depredations ; but the rook is not such a nest-spoiler as 

 some of the tribe, and it is not probable that it ever at- . 

 tacks those nests that are in trees, and certain that it does 

 not so in the wood which contains the rookery. The 

 little birds do not build so high as the rook, and in 

 day time that bird confines itself to the nest and the 



