68 SIED LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



crows can easily drop with closed wings, but too small for 

 them to flap through when they rise from the inside. Great 

 is the rejoicing of the farmer and his small children, and 

 prodigious the clamour of the birds on the outside of the 

 trap, when this cage is thronged with an entrapped multi- 

 tude. 



The rook is such a pleasant neighbour in a country house 

 that he is generally and properly protected, but occasionally 

 he is " wanted " either as a misdoer, guilty of agricultural 

 offences, or as a victim to the modern falconer, who finds in 

 him a convenient quarry to enter haggards upon. Mr. J. E. 

 Harting tells us that rooks are taken for this purpose in two 

 ways. The first is to get a boy to climb a tree in the rookery, 

 taking with him a long line with a noose at one end. The 

 noose must be carefully adjusted over the nest in such a 

 manner that when a rook has settled down to roost in the 

 evening, the falconer on pulling the other end of the string 

 at the foot of the tree may catch it round the legs. It is in 

 this way that herons are generally caught for the same 

 purpose. A certain amount of care must be exercised to 

 ensure the line running freely, and also to ensure getting 

 the bird down nicely. The other method is to set traps 

 behind a plough, and to get the ploughman to shift them 

 from time to time as he proceeds. The trap need not be 

 large or heavy, and a short line or peg will prevent a rook 

 flying away with it. If the spring be too strong or the 

 teeth too sharp, the jaws may be bound with list so as to 

 prevent a risk of breaking the bird's leg, In putting on 

 the list, of course care must be taken that it does not 

 impede the closing of the trap ; otherwise the rook on 

 springing it would extricate his foot and get away. 



But, says another friend of the birds " In his industry 

 the farmer has but few such friends, or the insect world 

 such foes. Up in the morning, before the dew is off the 

 grass, the rooks are hard at work disposing of that ' first 

 worm ' which proverbially falls to the lot of the early bird. 





