Birds. 937 



be disarranged by such means, to its original state, and we should, at all events, occa- 

 sionally see some young stumpy feathers endeavouring to assert their privilege, for I 

 deny that they labour so incessantly at all seasons, in working beneath the surface 

 deep enough to prevent them, and even when extracting the newly-sown grain, at 

 which times they perhaps work lower in the soil than at any other, the forehead is but 

 seldom brought into very rough contact ; the earth is first removed with the point of 

 the bill, a hole made, and the grain afterwards taken out. The same plan of opera- 

 tion is pursued when working for larvae and insects in the pastures ; the roots of grass 

 are torn up with the point of the bill, and the ground afterwards, if necessary, until 

 the object of search becomes an easy prey. If the absence of these feathers was 

 really caused by the assiduity of the rook's labouring and boring, it might be sup- 

 posed to have a similar effect upon other birds, which at certain periods of the year 

 are in the habit of inserting their bills into the ground equally as deep, yet we do not 

 find one exhibiting the most remote tendency to put on such an appearance. It may, 

 too, be fairly questioned, whether any labour of the bird's working in the ground, 

 however protracted, or whatever the soil, would, even for the time being, wear the 

 feathers away to the extent exhibited on the rook's head, and also impart to it that 

 peculiar white scurfy appearance ; and I maintain, that even were it so, the feathers 

 would, at certain times of the year, be found endeavouring to resume their place ; 

 yet, all the old rooks that may be examined in summer, winter or harvest, will appear 

 by their heads to have been perpetually digging with the same untiring perseverance, 

 so similar is one to another in the extent, and even margin of the naked portion of the 

 forehead and throat. With respect to the time of their first losing these feathers, I 

 am inclined, from manv observations, to think they are not, in healthy birds, renewed 

 after the first autumnal moult ; many may, certainly, be found in the winter months, 

 having a portion or the whole of them left ; these I take to be late hatched birds, 

 which did not complete their moult in season, a common occurrence, and in various 

 species the entire nestling plumage is occasionally retained through the winter. — 

 Christopher Parsons ; North Shoebury Hall, Essex, February 25, 1845. 



Nudity of the Rook's Head and Forehead. Bewick, in treating upon the rook in his 

 ' History of British Birds,' vol. i. p. 71, has remarked that he is inclined to consider 

 the naked condition of the base of the bill and the anterior region of the head, in this 

 species, as an original peculiarity, apparently intending to intimate thereby a belief 

 that at no period of its existence are the parts in question covered with feathers, a 

 construction of the passage which is countenanced by his having omitted to notice the 

 fact, that young rooks, before their first moult, do not exhibit this deficiency of plumage. 

 Now, as young rooks, when they quit the nest, have the base of the bill and the ante- 

 rior part of the head amply provided with feathers, the question naturally arises, how 

 is the nudity of these parts in old birds occasioned ? On referring to my ' Researches 

 in Zoology,' p. 174-175, it will be seen that, in the year 1834, 1 advocated the opinion 

 prevalent among ornithologists, that the loss of the feathers alluded to above is attri- 

 butable to the habit which the rook has of thrusting its bill into the ground in search 

 of food. An extensive examination and comparison of specimens had led me to 

 observe, that the nudity extends further, and is more complete in some individuals 

 than in others ; that the more prominent and exposed parts are first deprived of fea- 

 thers, and that short filiform processes, bearing a close resemblance to new feathers 

 enveloped in membrane, frequently occur on the less prominent and less exposed parts, 

 particularly on the flaccid skin which occupies the angle at the base of the lower man- 



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