a98 The Zoologist — July, 1866. 



a small potato now and then ? Do you give him no credit for the 

 grubs he destroys ? If he eats some bushels of your corn from the 

 stooks (sheafs), thou selfish, perverse and blind fool, man, did he not 

 follow your plough for months — aye, and will he not do so again — to 

 clear your laud from vermin ? That very field of waving corn, with its 

 heavy ears nodding to the wind and ripening beneath an autumn sun, 

 which you smile on, did not he help — and bravely, too — to cleanse it 

 for you, and thus to bring it as it is ? Did you cause one seed to 

 grow? You did not: no! a greater than you caused the grain 

 to give forth its increase for your benefit: He also gave the bird, and 

 He gives nothing, man, in vain. "Man in his best estate is altogether 

 vanity :" how true, when he tries to fight against Nature, when Nature 

 alone can be mistress, except he (man) can form a substitute to do that 

 good which Nature's handiwork does for him. What could man sub- 

 stitute for the bird, the rook ? We hear of poison manures being used 

 to free the ground from insects. Absurd and fickle ! with all these 

 poisons does not the rook kill thousands still, and does he not, from 

 gray dawn till dark, do man a service? Poor ancient headed rook! 

 I have the heart, if not the pen, to plead for you. I examined a young 

 rook from the nest, some days ago, having the upper mandible of the bill 

 completely recurved, the mouth, consequently, being always open. 



Siskin. — On the 27th of March I saw two siskins paired. It is very 

 rare to meet them breeding in this county. 



Shearwaler. — On the 29th of March I met the first arrived shear- 

 water. Through April and May they have been the most abundant 

 bird in the bay, and how they can be called scarce puzzles me. 

 They are all in the same plumage, that given by Yarrell. 



Redtliroaled Diier. — Has been very abundant this spring till the 

 middle of May : I procured many specimens in the several spring 

 plumages, and several with the beautiful red throat. As the plumages 

 of this bird will be the subject of a future letter I refrain from giving 

 them now. 



Shag. — I stated in my letter on the shag (S. S. 243) that the feathers 

 of the upper scapulars do not moult : in their first spring they do moult 

 occasionally, but parlially ; the greatest amount of these feathers 

 change, as I said, by transmutation, and always so in second winter. 



Gannet. — The gannet arrives in the Bay early in April ; they are 

 then very abundant, but, strange to say, there are always perfectly 

 adult birds. No such thing as a young bird is to be .seen ; in fact, 

 adults are always far more plentiful than young on this coast. 



