68 PHEASANTS FOE COVEBTS AND AVIABIES. 



number of grass and weed seedsj the liusk of corn — wlieat and 

 barley — ^many kinds of weed and coarse grass seeds. After 

 harvest and gleaning season is over, no more pellets are to be 

 seen. In the wheat-sowing season they filch some loose 

 grains and dig out the young plants, and, through its being 

 wet at this season, and collected with much dirt, the food is 

 ejected in a loose manner like mud. However, in all my long 

 experience, I never saw under the trees an eggshell of any 

 game, poultry, or other birds, except the shells of their own 

 which had been hatched out, or tumbled out by stormy winds. 

 I have, however, yearly seen a pair of carrion crows attend to 

 the early rooks' nest, and carry off the new-laid eggs, as they 

 did also with pheasants' eggs, the shells of which I have 

 found lying about by scores. It is a curious fact that, 

 numerous as the rooks are, they are such cowards as to allow 

 the crow to rob them, and only fly round and round, cawing, 

 while the robbery is going on." 



I have known many cases where pheasants have sat, and 

 reared their young safely almost immediately under a rookery. 

 On the other hand, there is no doubt but that in seasons of 

 scarcity, when very hard pressed for food, rooks will destroy 

 pheasants' eggs. 



Colonel J. Whyte, Newtown Manor, Sligo, in reply to Mr. 

 Barnes, writes as follows : " There appears some doubt 

 whether rooks suck pheasants' eggs, or whether the carrion 

 crow is not the real depredator. Perhaps what follows may 

 set the question -at rest. About four years since. Lord 

 Clonbrock asked me if I had ever known rooks eat the eggs 

 of pheasants. My idea was that they might do so occasionally, 

 but not as a custom. His lordship replied: ' The rooks about 

 me have within the last year or two taken to hunt up and 

 destroy the eggs as regularly as if they were so many magpies. 

 I did not believe my keeper at first, but, going myseK to look 

 out, I saw them regularly beating up and down a piece of 

 rough ground where the pheasants nest, and when they found 

 one they would rise up a few yards in the air and then pounce 



