320 corvim:. 



the dead bodies, that as a matter of curiosity they were reckoned 

 by some boys, as they gathered them into heaps. Dean Vignolles 

 likewise submitted to Mr. Ball's inspection an unusually thick 

 panel of a new window shutter, which was driven in and. split, 

 by a rook being clashed against it, on the night in question : — 

 the innocent cause of the damage was found dead between the 

 window and the shutter, inside the room. Other fatalities occa- 

 sionally befall the rook. In the autumn of 1831 (?), there was a 

 dense fog over Lough Neagh and its neighbourhood, for two 

 nights and an entire day, during which time great numbers of 

 these birds perished in its waters, and were afterwards washed 

 ashore. I have been told that a similar circumstance occurred in 

 the harbour of Cove, in the south of Ireland, some years ago. At 

 mid-winter, I have remarked large bodies returning at roosting 

 time, across the broadest portion of Belfast bay, to their rookery. 



At Eedhall, county of Antrim, a friend once saw a brood of 

 four young rooks, all of which were white, though both parents 

 were of the ordinary sable hue, J. V. Stewart, Esq., of Eockhill, 

 near Letterkenny, possesses two varieties of the rook, one entirely 

 of a clingy brown colour, and having a diseased appearance : 

 the other, with two white bars across the wings, the rest of the 

 plumage being of the usual colour. In the year 1839, I was told 

 by Mr. G. J. Allman, that several light fawn-coloured birds of this 

 species were shot near Bandon a few years previously, some of which 

 he had seen in company with other rooks, that freely associated 

 with them. 



Mr. Poole has kindly furnished me with a history of the rook, 

 as observed by himself in the county of Wexford. The following 

 passages, &c, on points not hitherto treated of, are selected from 

 it:— 



" At the commencement of our rookery, the infant colony con- 

 sisted of twelve pairs, the next season the number of nests was 

 forty-six, and on the third it had increased to 176 nests, thus in- 

 dicating, that allowing for deaths by disease or accident, the birds 

 quadruple their numbers every year. A rather curious accident 

 happened in our rookery. In a quarrel between two rooks one of 



