176 Rooks and Rookeries By James Small. 



being sown ; and farmers occasionally express a good humoured 

 wish that some neighbour would begin to " sow first and feed 

 the crows." After grain is in the seed bed it is seldom preyed 

 on by rooks ; and when they are seen feeding in thick black 

 clusters on parts of newly-sown or sprouted corn fields, it is 

 almost always grubs they are assembled to devour ; and almost 

 any farmer can testify that the spots on which he may have seen 

 rooks thus clustered after the grain has been sown for a time bear 

 as good a crop as the other parts of the field. Indeed in an immoder- 

 ately dry season when from want of surface moisture earth worms 

 remain underground and slugs and grubs are scarcely procurable 

 even in small numbers, they do not attack to an extent worthy 

 of notice either grain recently sown or grain in the ear. But 

 in severe winters and in early spring they do much damage in 

 stackyards here and there. In autumn they peculate now and 

 then from the stooks, but very moderately. I have shot rooks 

 on several occasions when feeding in stubble fields where grain 

 was abundant, and when opened I seldom found more than a few 

 grains in the stomach, and I as often found none ; but there 

 was genererally present a considerable mash of beetles, small 

 earth worms, hoglice, and larvse of various insects. 



Eooks are a pest in the potato field when the crop is young. 

 They then, especially in. dry summers, dig up the seed-tubers 

 and thereby do much damage ; and on that account a crow-herd 

 is often necessary. Many people, however, mistakenly think 

 that rooks dig up the seed potatoes in order to eat them. They 

 seldom eat any part of them ; but they carry them off and split 

 them up, to feed on the numerous grubs that are generally found 

 sticking in and around the partly decayed tubers. 



They are much more destructive in the turnip field ; and 

 indeed in the north of Eoxburghshire and in Lower Selkirkshire 

 the damage they do to the turnip crop is a matter of very grave 

 importance. All over the country they have always more or less 

 been in the habit of pulling up considerable quantities of turnips 

 in the early stage of their existence on the prowl for grubs ; but 

 it is only of late years that they have taken to feed largely on 

 the bulbs of turnips— this in winter and the early spring. I 

 have seen one heap of turnips, of perhaps ten tons, brought 

 in from the field to the farm yard, more bulbs broken and 

 partly eaten than there were whole bulbs ; and this was done 

 entirely by rooks. On the same farm in the severe winter of 



