316 corvim;. 



the examination of any slaughtered birds, that by exhibiting the 

 food they contained, my friend might be convinced of the evil of 

 his ways in destroying them ; but as usual in such cases, none were 

 ever sent to me. The propriety of having boys to guard the 

 lately-sown wheat, where the depredations are perhaps the most 

 serious, was suggested, but the very early hour was said to be an 

 insuperable obstacle. The rooks could, however, at trifling ex- 

 pense, be watched, and frightened away by boys at this time, and 

 when the grain is lodged.* Such precaution taken, very little 

 harm indeed could these birds justly be accused of doing. 



One of the inimitable tail-pieces to Bewick's Birds (ed. 1832, 

 vol. i. p. 93), points to the inutility of one kind of scare-crow, 

 where a rook is represented peering curiously, but without the least 

 fear, at the wretched effigy of humanity, erected to frighten away 

 the species. In newly planted potato-fields, &c, I have remarked 

 hosts of these birds feeding, while among them hung their 

 gibbeted brethren, only lately killed. f At the more genial period 

 of the year, flocks of rooks occasionally visit the mountain pastures 

 near Belfast. 



Win. Sinclaire, Esq., of Milltown, Belfast, has informed me, 

 that towards the end of autumn, for a dozen years or more suc- 

 cessively, after the harvest was gathered in, numbers of rooks came 

 every morning for about a fortnight, to the pine-trees (Pinus syl- 

 vestris) in that district, for the sake of the cones, which they 

 plucked from the branches and carried away. J When the cones 

 could not be detached in the ordinary manner, they seized them 

 in their bills, and launched into the air, that the weight of their 



* The Bishop of Norwich, in his Familiar History of Birds, fairly weighs the good 

 and harm done by rooks, and is convinced that the former greatly preponderates. 

 He suggests this watching, as Sir Win. Jardiue, likewise, has subsequently done ; 

 and I have been pleased to see it carried into effect on the farm attached to Belvoir 

 Park, near Belfast, where boys provided with a watchman's rattle, or similar instru- 

 ment, were employed in frightening the rooks from newly sown fields. 



f A friend who kept three eagles, procured rooks enough to feed them on in 

 summer, as these birds came to regale themselves at the troughs containing pig's- 

 meat, of which potatoes formed the principal part. 



\ Mr. Poole, too, remarks, that in the county of Wexford, " the cones of Scotch firs 

 form a considerable part of the subsistence of rooks in the autumn. They generally 

 carry them to some distance from the trees and dissect them on the ground." 



