270 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
the outsiders, and frequently come on old and young 
together. The old bird will not sit and let you aim 
at him perching ; if you shoot him, it must be on the 
wing. The young bird will sit and let you pick him 
off with a crossbow, and even if a cartridge singes his 
wing he will sometimes only hop a yard or two along 
the boughs. 
Though hard hit and shattered with shot, they 
will cling to the branches convulsively, seeming to 
hang by the crook of the claw or by muscular con- 
traction even when perfectly dead, till lifted up by a 
shot fired directly underneath, or till the bough itself 
is skilfully cut off bya cartridge and both come down 
together. The young feathers being soft, and the 
quills not so hard as in older birds, scarcely a rook- 
shooting ever goes by without some one claiming to 
have made a tremendous long shot, which is quite 
possible, as it does not require many pellets or much 
force behind them. 
On dropping a rook, probably at some distance 
from the rookery, where the men are whose duty it is 
to collect the slain, beware of carrying the bird ; let 
him lie, or at most throw him upon a bramble bush 
in a conspicuous spot till a boy comes round. Rooks. 
are perfectly ,infested with vermin, which in a few 
minutes will pass up their legs on to your hand, and 
cause an unpleasant irritation, though it is only tem- 
porary ; for the insects cannot exist long away from 
the bird. 
