CROWS. C9 



Like detectives, they are perpetually on the watch to arrest 

 some one, and woe to the insect, grub, or beetle whose evil 

 ways are discovered. There is no appeal from a rook. It 

 holds its sessions where it chooses, and they may look for 

 summary procedure who come under this admirable bird." 



This only makes all the more ungenerous the device of 

 the Wiltshire husbandmen. Though we have no experience 

 of the success of the method, it is said rooks are taken by 

 them as follows : A number of cones are made of dark- 

 coloured paper. At the bottom of each of these is placed 

 some corn, and round the upper edge is smeared a little 

 birdlime. The cones are then stuck about a field, point 

 downwards, where the rooks resort, and, on their coming 

 there, they observe the corn, and thrusting their heads in 

 to obtain it, the cones become stuck to them, rendering 

 them blind, and they may be captured in that state by hand. 

 In folk-lore they hold an honourable place. They are said 

 to connect themselves with the fortunes of families, deserting 

 their elms when disaster overtakes the house ; and Cosmo di 

 Medici, visiting England two centuries ago, was especially 

 struck by the pride the peerage took in its rookeries. " For 

 these birds," said he, "are of good omen." 



The jay is a crow with the men of science, in spite of its 

 gay dress, and lets out the secret in voice and inquisitive 

 ness. Though "the brigands and tyrants of the coppice," 

 they are one of the few birds of brilliant plumage native 

 to England, and do but little harm to the game of our wood- 

 lands, it is on the small birds that they chiefly wage war. 

 Their clanship and the interest each takes in its neighbours' 

 concerns is very remarkable. A writer in a long-extinct 

 journal gives a very amusing account of the way in which 

 this trait in the jay's character is turned to use for his 

 destruction. Describing an orchard in German Alsace, he 

 says : " It was pretty extensive, covering, I should say, a 

 couple of acres, and its trees, which were, all but one, in 

 excellent trim, were chiefly apple and cherry trees. The 



