The Zoologist— July, 1866. 297 



Gray Wagtail. — From the beginning of March the gray wagtail 

 begins to assume the black throat : I never knew this colour assumed 

 otherwise than by a distinct moult. In some individuals the patch is 

 lead-colour, and in all cases in pei'fect plumage the feathers are 

 fringed with while : this white fringe is fickle, and generally lost in 

 May, the throat then being entirel}' black. This disappearance of the 

 white fringe has given rise to the statement that the feathers change 

 by transmutation ; it is not so : neither does the fringe turn black, but 

 distinctly wears off, and is only the nuptial dress. Yarrell, in his ad- 

 mirable plates, gives too large a patch of black to agree with our Irish 

 bird. Neither does the yellow of the adult male grow more intense in 

 summer than it has been in winter ; my experience teaches me quite 

 the reverse, and that the older the male the whiter the breast and sides 

 become, the back assuming a pure unmixed hoary gray, and the wing- 

 quills growing much darker than either the female or the male of last 

 year. The same remarks as to intensity of colouring apply to the 

 wheatear. 



Rook. — From about the middle of April the rook of last year begins 

 to loose the feathers from the bill, so that I do not believe in the theory 

 of the rook wearing oflf" the feathers from the bill by boring after 

 grubs, &c. If this be the true solution, why should they fall off at this 

 particular time, and not before ? I have long reckoned it a sign of 

 puberty, and I think my belief is strengthened by the fact of the capistri 

 remaining on till now. A wounded rook brought to me on the 9lh of 

 April showed a very strange malformation of the feet. Instead of 

 walking on the phalanges, they were perfectly contracted and closed; 

 the bird walked on the front of the ankles actively and well. On being 

 confined to a loft for several hours he cast up pellets like those from a 

 bird of prey : to a casual observer they would seem to be pieces of dry 

 horse-dung : these pellets are very plentiful in rookeries. On making 

 a minute examination of their substance, which are fibres, I came to 

 the conclusion that they were the cuticles of the succulent roots of the 

 couch-grass, called in Ireland " skutch" or " scootch." On shooting 

 some rooks feeding in a field harassed by this grass I found that I was 

 right, for there was the torn root in the ground, and pieces of it in the 

 bills and throats of the rooks. Now, agriculturists, that a new benefit 

 which the rook does you is laid before your eyes, will you still cry him 

 down and wish that he was exterminated; he that helps you to do 

 what you pay your gold to get done — helps to destroy that curse of 

 many grounds, " skutch " grass ? Will you kill him because he takes 



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