CHAPTER XIV. 



A PLEA FOR THE ROOKS.* 



IT is hard to fight against the prejudices of mankind, but inas- 

 much as in some districts of Wiltshire, not content with the 

 annual ruthless slaughter of the newly fledged brood, some have 

 thought fit to begin a war of extermination, by wholesale poison- 

 ing and otherwise, against the whole family of Rooks, it is time 

 for the friends of those ill-starred birds to expostulate, and 

 point out the suicidal policy of those short-sighted men who, 

 under a mistaken notion of their true character, are destroying 

 some of the best friends the farmer has. 



It would be fair, in the first place, to bespeak in behalf of this 

 persecuted tribe the goodwill of all who love country life, by calling 

 to mind the cheery note, so eloquent of lengthening days and 

 advancing spring, which charms the ear of those who live near 

 a rookery ; or by pointing out the animation which all Nature 

 derives from their presence, and the sad blank which would exist 

 in our meadows and fields, in the event of their destruction : but 

 as we may fairly conjecture that such pleas border too much on 

 the romantic to weigh with such matter-of-fact minds as those of 

 their would-be-destroyers, I will waive all such considerations, 

 and rest my cause on their substantial merits alone. 



I begin by stating at the outset that it is not at all my inten- 

 tion to endeavour to prove my prote'ge's perfectly harmless and 

 immaculate, because I am well aware that a certain amount of 



* The substance of this chapter was read before the Wiltshire Archaeo- 

 logical and Natural History Society during the annual meeting at Malmes- 

 bury in August, 1862. 



