570 Short Communicatio7is. 



the grubs which are always very abundant in meadow 

 ground. 



It is stated in one of the Perthshire newspapers of this 

 month, that not less than 27,000 crows were destroyed this 

 season at Dupplin by the demolition of between 1 1,000 and 

 12,000 nests; and all this was performed by contract for the 

 sum of twenty-five pounds sterling. — Ajioii. June 25. 1 833. 



In opposition to the spirit of persecution displayed in the 

 above remarks, against the rook, and other birds, — " vermin," 

 as the writer calls them, — we present a short extract from a 

 notice, of some length, on the usefulness of the rook, which 

 has been published in the Magazine of Natural History, 

 vol. vi. p. 142, 143. — J. D. 



" In the neighbourhood of my native place, in the county 

 of York, is a rookery belonging to Wm. Vavasour, Esq., 

 of Weston, in Wharfdale, in which it is estimated that 

 there are 10,000 rooks, that 1 lb. of food a week is a 

 very moderate allowance for each bird, and that nine 

 tenths of their food consist of worms, insects and their 

 larvae ; for, although they do considerable damage to the fields 

 for a few weeks in seedtime and a few weeks in harvest, 

 particularly in backward seasons, yet a very large proportion 

 of their food, even at these seasons, consists of insects and 

 worms, which (if we except a few acorns and walnuts in 

 autumn) compose at all other times the whole of their sub- 

 sistence. Here, then, if my data be correct, there is the 

 enormous quantity of 468,000 lbs. or 209 tons of worms, 

 insects, and their larvae, destroyed by the rooks of a 

 single rookery : to every one who knows how very destruc- 

 tive to vegetation are the larvae of the tribes of insects, as 

 well as worms, fed upon by rooks, some slight idea may be 

 formed of the devastation which rooks are the means of pre- 

 venting." (TT G. of Clitheroe, Lajicasliire^ in M.ag. Nat. 

 Hist., vol. vi. p. 142.) 



Proofs of the efforts of the rooks to obtain insects for food 

 in early spring may be readily perceived in a stroll, at that 

 time, over the hay meadows about London. — J. D. 



On the Ravages of the Tinea padella L. [ Yponomeiita padella 

 Latr.] ; and some Suggestions for preserving Pla?its from the 

 Ravages of Insects generally. — Sir, No insect makes greater 

 havoc of our whitethorn hedges and apple trees than the 

 little grey moth, Tinea padella Lin. Wherever the cater- 

 pillars of this insect seat themselves, they appear to be con- 

 gregated in vast numbers : every spray is covered. The 

 leaves vanish before them ; so that, by midsummer, not only 

 single trees, but whole orchards, and entire hedges from end 



