A Plea for the Books. 575 



passed by the Chamber of Deputies to prohibit the destruction 

 of birds in a particular district of France ; they had been 

 recklessly killed off, and the harvest being swept away in its 

 first green stage by millions of hungry reapers, the earth had 

 ceased to yield its increase.'* In our own country, on some very 

 large farms in Devonshire, the proprietors determined a few 

 summers ago to try the experiment of offering a great reward 

 for the heads of Rooks ; but the issue proved destructive to 

 the farms, for nearly the whole of the crops failed for three suc- 

 cessive years, and they have since been forced to import Rooks 

 and other birds to restock their farms with.' A similar experi- 

 ment was made a few years ago in a northern county, particularly 

 in reference to Rooks, but with no better success ; the farmers 

 were obliged to reinstate the Rooks to save the crops. I have 

 been also credibly informed by an intelligent farmer in Norfolk 

 that ' the trees in a neighbouring rookery having been cut down 

 for the repair of farm-buildings, and the Rooks thereby banished, 

 he has lost hundreds and hundreds of pounds by wireworm and 

 a peculiar beetle which abounds in cornfields, which Rooks alone 

 destroy :' by which I conjecture he means the grub of the cock- 

 chafer described above. While another occupier in the same 

 county told me c that one boy after another, placed by him to 

 keep off the Rooks from a piece of wheat, having ' played him 

 false' (as he called it), he determined to leave it alone ; when the 

 Rooks actually swarmed on it, and he expected no crop, but to 

 his great surprise, when harvest came, he had the best crop he 

 ever saw.' But perhaps the best proof of the advantage supposed 

 to be derived from these birds is, that in some districts enlight- 

 ened farmers are going to considerable expense and taking some 

 pains to introduce them on their property. 



With such facts before us and such unanswerable evidence of 

 the value of Rooks, and of the grievous want of them where they 

 have from any cause been expelled, I feel the greatest confidence 

 in pleading for their preservation ; and to sum up all that has 

 been said in the words of an excellent article in an old volume of 



Yarrell, ii., p. 96. 



