8952 Birds. 
Mr. Reeks (Zvol. 8884) and Mr. Cecil Smith (Zool. 8885), who seem to paint them 
in colours too much like the vulture. I have watched the rooks at all seasons, and 
seldom have seen them near carrion; but when they were in tbat situation, it could 
be plainly seen they were in search of the maggots with which the putrid carcase 
abounded. Fowls of all sorts eat maggots of every description most eagerly, and 
gamekeepers often collect them, as well as ants’ eggs, to feed young pheasants with. 
I have inquired of old gamekeepers into the damage done by rooks, and their answers 
have been invariably that rooks never destroy young birds of any sort. Magpies 
destroy many young birds; and I can attest that myself, as to young blackbirds, 
which I have seen killed and commenced to be eaten by these birds, and so do carrion 
crows. The only damage a very old gamekeeper mentioned to be done by rooks was 
one of an extraordinary character: in the year 1826, we had the hottest and driest 
spring and summer in this century ; water was so scarce that cattle in many places 
were obliged to be driven for a mile or two to procure it. This gamekeeper observed 
some rooks busy near a spot where there were some pheasants’ nests, and, on going to 
examine the spot, he found that the rooks had sucked the whole of the eggs in several 
nests, no doubt entirely from the fact of being unable to meet with water near, all the 
ditches and water-courses being dried up. I by no means doubt the statement as to 
the localities described by the gentlemen who have noticed the rooks to have been 
attacking carrion, but, in many instances, I have seen carrion crows mistaken for 
rooks; but if rooks have been inclined to be carnivorous, it may have been through 
want of food of the right sort, and only a casual thing: they generally feed in the 
centre of large open fields, and seldom skulk near hedges and close places 
where carrion abounds. I can verify the fondness of rooks for apples and pears, 
walnuts, seed corn, ripe wheat and oats, potatoes (both newly-planted and young), 
cockchafers, and numerous sorts of insects and larve and worms. Rooks may also 
be seen in large flocks feeding on the sea-shore with gulls and jackdaws; but this 
does not furnish any proof of rooks being so very caruivorous as described by the 
writers alluded to; and I certainly put these birds down, as they have been described 
by many close observers, as decidedly granivorous birds, Granivorous fowls are all 
extremely fond of unhatched young wasps, pulled from the combs: this, I hope, 
would not be considered a reason for calling them carnivorous, nor would the congre- 
gating of the rooks on the sea-shore to pick up the numerous small insects which a 
high tide may have left. In 1837, a very late cold spring prevented the rooks from 
feeding their young with the usual food, and numbers of the young died from apparent 
starvation: this does not look as if the young birds were fed by anything like carrion. 
—H. W. Newman ; Hillside, Cheltenham, January 7, 1864. 
Defence of the Magpie and Rook—For some years past my attention has been 
directed to the wanton destruction of small birds, by means of poisoned grain scattered 
recklessly about the fields, gardens and lanes, of my part of the country—more 
especially during the breeding season; and I have, on several occasions, brought the 
matter fully before the East Kent Natural History Society, and the local Press, and 
endeavoured to disprove the excess of damage done by birds generally, and to prove 
that grain, so poisoned, will destroy other life than that for which it is laid out. One 
morning a gentleman brought me a dead magpie, in very fine plumage, which he had 
picked up whilst crossing a field, with other birds, and amongst them a partridge. On 
examining the crop of the magpie, seven grains of poisoned wheat were found, nine 
wireworms, and about a tablespoonful of beetles of various sizes, and larve. The 
