318 CORVIDiE. 



rookery about a mile and a half distant must, I imagine, have 

 likewise contributed its numbers. Although they closely covered 

 fields of all kinds (pasture, meadow-land, and ploughed ground), 

 they were not congregated for the purpose of feeding, not 

 more perhaps than one in a hundred being ever so engaged. 

 Again, they would all be on wing at such a height as to look no 

 larger than swallows, and would keep within as limited a space in 

 the air, as they had occupied on the earth. 



Rooks, as remarked by Mr. Macgillivray, " seem to calculate 

 upon the protection which they usually receive in the neighbour- 

 hood of their breeding-places." Here, it is highly interesting to 

 observe them become fellow-labourers with man when the plough 

 is at work, alighting at the ploughman's heels, and closely following 

 its track to consume the destructive larvse which are turned up ; 

 thus performing an important office that the lords of creation 

 could not accomplish for themselves. At such times, too, as if 

 conscious of the good in which they are engaged, they admit of a 

 near approach, and their finely polished plumage has a beautiful 

 effect, as it glances like burnished metal in the sun. Their time 

 of roosting varies a little, as the afternoon may be bright or 

 gloomy. Once on the 10th of August, I remarked a great 

 number busily employed in feeding at some distance from the 

 rookery so late as seven o'clock in the evening ; the day through- 

 out having been dull and dark. 



Rooks sometimes do a great deal of injury to trees in or near 

 rookeries, by perching on their topmost branches. At Cultra, 

 county of Down, the upper portions of the branches of very large 

 sycamore and beech trees, have been wholly killed by them. At 

 Jardine Hall, they have proved very injurious to young trees, 

 especially larches of about fifteen years' growth, by building in 

 them, and destroying their leading shoots. I saw many instances 

 of this having been done, although old trees are in abundance, 

 not only in the demesne, but adjacent to the young ones selected. 

 The ring-dove, too, has greatly injured some beautiful and thriving 

 young Weymouth pines there by roosting on their top shoots. 



The rook, like other birds mentioned in these pages, can be 



