396 USE OF THE ROOK. 



For its depredations on game they attempt no excuse, but only offer an apology on the 

 ground that the affair is very rare, and that condonation may be granted to the bird 

 in consideration of the great services rendered in other parts of the year. They aver that 

 its object in pulling up the young corn sprouts is not so much to eat the corn as 

 to devour that pest of the farmer, the terrible wireworm, which lurks at the root of the 

 corn, and infallibly destroys every plant which it has once attacked. That such has 

 been the case may often be seen by the yellow and unhealthy aspect of the destroyed 

 blades which are left scattered on the ground after the extraction of the wireworm. 

 Potatoes again are attacked by numerous insect foes, and it is to eat these that the Rook 

 unearths the " sets." It is true that bits of potato have been found in the Rook's crop, 

 but in all probability they have been casually eaten together with the insects that are 

 lurking within. The same remark may be made of the turnips. 



Besides performing these services, the Rook saves acres of grass annually from being 

 destroyed by the grub of the common cockchaffer beetle. The grub or larva of this 

 insect is one of the most destructive foes to grass lands, feeding upon the roots and 

 shearing them very nearly level with the surface of the ground by means of its scissor- 

 like jaws. So destructive are these insects, and so complete are their ravages, that a 

 person has been able to take in his hands the turf under which they had been living and 

 to roll it up as if it had been cut with a spade. In one place, the grubs were so numerous 

 that they were counted by the bushel. When it is remembered that this creature lives 

 for three years underground, is furnished with a huge stomach, a wonderful capability of 

 digestion, and a formidable cutting apparatus for obtaining its food, the services of the 

 Rook in destroying it may be better imagined. Moreover, the beetle is just as destructive 

 as the grub, settling upon trees and fairly stripping them of their leaves. I have 

 dissected many of these grubs, and always found their stomachs distended to the utmost 

 with a mixture of black earth and vegetable matter. 



Again, when the ploughman is turning up the soil, how common, or rather how 

 invariable, a sight it is to see the Rooks settling around him, alighting in the furrow 

 which he makes, and seizing the grubs and worms as they are turned up by the share. 

 Not a single worm, grub, or other insect escapes the keen eye and ready bill of this 

 useful bird. Some idea of the extensive character of its operations may be formed from 

 the following remarks by Mr. Simeon, in his interesting work entitled " Stray Notes on 

 Fishing and Natural History." 



" I was walking one day with a gentleman on his home farm, when we observed the 

 grass on about an acre of meadow land to be so completely rooted up and scarified that 

 he took it for granted it had been done under the bailiff's direction to clear it from moss, 

 and on arriving at the farm, inquired whether such was not the case. The answer was, 

 however, ' Oh no, sir, we have not been at work there at all ; it's the Rooks done all that.' 

 The mistake was a very natural one, for though I have often seen places where grass has 

 been pulled up by Rooks, yet I never saw such clean and wholesale work done by 

 them as on this occasion. It could not apparently have been executed more syste- 

 matically or perfectly by the most elaborate ' scarifier ' that Croskill or Ransome could 

 turn out. 



On examining the spot afterwards, I found that the object of the Rooks' researches 

 had doubtless been a small white grub, numbers of which still remained in the ground 

 a short distance below the surface. In the following spring I noticed that the part 

 of the field where this had taken place was densely covered with cowslips, much 

 more so than the rest of it. Possibly the roots of these plants may have been the 

 proper food for the grubs, and therefore selected by the parent insect as receptacles 

 for her eggs." 



The Rook also feeds upon berries and various fruits, being especially fond of oak-nuts, 

 and having a curious habit of buiying them in the earth before eating them, by which 

 means, no doubt, many a noble oak-tree is planted. It also eats walnuts, and is fond of 

 driving its bill through them and so taking them from the tree. The cones of the Scotch 

 iir are also favourite food with the Rook, which seizes them in its beak, and tries to pull 

 them from the bough by main force ; but if it should fail in this attempt, it drags the 



