186 THE RANGE OF ANIMAL DIET 



after some time became thin and emaciated. They then 

 attacked the new-born lambs, and devoured such numbers 

 that in one flock only four hundred were left out of 

 twelve hundred. Some of the squatters applied for 

 leave from the Government to move to other runs not 

 yet taken up. Even the shepherds were attacked by 

 the sheep when rescuing the lambs, and their clothes 

 bitten. This morbid derangement of the instincts of 

 the sheep, which was noted on many runs in the district, 

 was never satisfactorily accounted for, but was generally 

 attributed to the eating of the salt-impregnated earth. 

 Of English birds, one, generally regarded as feeding 

 entirely on vegetables and grain, occasionally varies its 

 diet by animal food. This is the tame pigeon, which 

 has been noticed after rain to eat earth-worms on lawns 

 as eagerly as a thrush. This addition to its usual food 

 is probably due to the absence in the diet generally 

 given to the birds of some element which pigeons find 

 in the mixed seeds and leaves which they eat when wild. 

 The flesh-eating habits of modern rooks in the North 

 of England and Scotland have recently been the subject 

 of a chorus of complaints from game-preservers and 

 farmers. The rooks are, however, largely the victims 

 of circumstance. The decrease of arable land, during 

 the cultivation of which they found abundance of animal 

 food, has forced the rooks to find a substitute, and this 

 comes to hand in the form of young rabbits, pheasants, 



