378 BIRD LIFE AT BINGHAM'S MELCOMBE 



they do pull up some few ears of corn while it is 

 growing, or eat a little of it when it is ripe, or pilfer 

 the potato beds, a bird-boy, put in for a week or 

 two at the critical time, is sufficient protection for 

 the one, and a few skilfully interwoven threads will 

 scare them from the other. But if they are allowed 

 to multiply inordinately, as they would do if there 

 were no rook-shooting, they must, in default of 

 sufficient grubs, betake themselves to the crops ; 

 or, as they are accused of doing in dry seasons on 

 the Scottish moors, they will destroy the eggs. 

 Where they are moderate in number, watch them, if 

 you will, while one portion of a big field is being 

 sown and another is being turned up by the plough, 

 and you will observe that they sedulously follow the 

 ploughman to get the grubs which he exposes to 

 view, while they leave the sower alone. 



When rooks take to building in trees where the 

 litter which they make would be objectionable, it 

 has been found difficult to dislodge them by any 

 method which is not destructive or cruel ; but Sir 

 Peter Lumsden, of Candahar and Penjdeh fame, a 

 keen naturalist as well as sportsman, tells me that 

 he accomplished his object in a way which was 

 not only bloodless in itself, but incidentally afforded 

 a striking and, I think, hitherto quite unnoticed proof 



