36 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 
raids by carrion-crows and other non-social mem- 
bers of the family Corvidz are common, and are 
sometimes so successful, in spite of the strength of 
unity, that the rookery is deserted. It looks as 
if the rooks were not very good fighters, though 
they do to herons what carrion-crows, hoodies, and 
ravens do to them. Perhaps, for all we know, it 
was some weakness or softness of character that led 
rooks to become the most social of European birds, 
for apart from the jackdaws, which are so often 
their satellites, the other members of the race to 
which they belong are solitaries and individualists. 
When the three to five eggs hatch, the parents 
have to be busier than ever, for the appetite of the 
young birds is large. Big mouthfuls of grubs and 
wireworms and the like are brought in, making a 
pouch-like bulging below the tongue; and at this 
time the rooks do so much in the farmer’s interests 
that we should not be too hard on them for their 
depredations at other times. In his splendid 
British Bird Book Mr. Kirkman quotes from Mr. 
Phil Robinson the interesting observation that, to 
begin with, the male bird gives the food only to 
the female, who passes it on “doubly peptonized to 
the babies,” and that later on both parents feed the 
young. ‘But it is most extraordinary to notice 
how the young accept it from the father without 
any demonstration, sometimes in complete silence, 
while every time the mother approaches they lift 
up their voices in a chorus of jubilation.” One 
would like to hear more of this matter. Every one 
