164 ON THE NUDITY OF THE ANTERIOR 
that Rook whose mandibles were greatly crossed 
may be accounted for on the supposition that it was a 
young bird which had not moulted. 
Had the experiment recorded by Mr. Waterton in 
his ‘Essays on Natural History,’ pp. 136-139, been 
successful, this question, upon which public opinion 
has been so long divided, would have been settled 
some years earlier; unfortunately, however, both the 
young Rooks selected for the purpose of deciding it 
met with untimely deaths, one before it had begun to 
moult, and the other soon after it had commenced 
moulting. On Mr. Waterton’s return from Bavaria, 
his gamekeeper, to whose care the latter bird had 
been consigned, informed him that at the period when 
its existence terminated “the lower mandible had 
begun to put on a white scurfy appearance, while 
here and there a few feathers had fallen from the 
upper one.” It is to be regretted that the issue of 
this experiment was not more satisfactory, as from 
the nature of the case it was impossible to determine 
whether the feathers lost from the base of the bill 
would be renewed or not, though feathers shed from 
other parts in the act of moulting are known to be 
reproduced. 
The Rook visits orchards and gardens when 
cherries and walnuts are ripe, for the purpose of feed- 
ing on those fruits ; it also devours grain of various 
kinds, and frequently commits depredations in potato- 
grounds hy abstracting the newly-planted sets; but I 
