238 Corvidce. 



grubs, so far exceeding any injury it may commit in occasionally 

 consuming corn, so that I need add but little more about it : it 

 is somewhat larger than the Carrion Crow, and may easily be 

 distinguished from that bird by the bare space of rough white 

 skin surrounding the base of the beak and on the fore part of the 

 head. As in the young birds these parts are covered with bristly 

 feathers, it has been by some supposed that the constant 

 plunging of the bill into the ground in search of worms and 

 grubs causes the abrasion of these feathers, while others affirm 

 it to be an original peculiarity : and the question is hardly yet 

 satisfactorily settled ; ' adhuc sub judice Us eat,' though I am 

 very decidedly of the latter opinion. The fact, however, of the 

 existence of the rough skin which serves to distinguish it from 

 its more sable congener, the Carrion Crow, is undoubted. This 

 skin is also very elastic and pliable, and in the spring the Rook 

 may be seen flying home to its nest, with its throat distended 

 with a supply of food for its young, as if in a pouch below the 

 chin, though none such exists. 



Professor Newton has well described a curious habit of this bird, 

 which must be familiar to many. 'Occasionally,' he says, 'mounted 

 to a very great height, the Rooks will suddenly let themselves 

 drop headlong, twisting as they fall, to within a few feet of the 

 trees or of the ground, when they recover themselves, and glide 

 onwards. One after another, as though they had all gone mad, 

 they precipitate themselves in this wonderful way, some of them 

 wheeling round and rising again to perform the feat a second 

 time.'* When first I went to reside at Yatesbury, now thirty-five 

 years ago, I was extremely anxious to see a rookery established 

 at the Rectory, and ardently wished that some of the birds from 

 a strong colony on a glebe near the old rectory and church, a 

 quarter of a mile away, might send a detachment to occupy my 

 home plantations. I had, however, but small expectation that 

 they would do so, on account of the inferiority both in size and 

 in age of the trees with which I was surrounded. It so chanced, 

 however, about this time, that the branches of a Scotch fir, 



Fourth edition of Yarrell's 'British Birds,' vol. ii., p. 298. 



