Birds. 4325 



The Corby Crows and the Rooks. By W. H. Slaney, Esq. 



That " the times are out of joint " few can deny ; and from what 

 I am about to relate, it would appear that the aggressive and bellige- 

 rent spirit put forth by His Imperial Majesty of Russia, which is now 

 "frightening the world from its propriety," is not alone confined to 

 the human race, but has extended itself, to some at least of the fea- 

 thered creation as well. 



At a short distance, and on the opposite side of a small valley from 

 whence this is written, a large rookery has been established time out 

 of mind ; but as the Malthusian doctrine had no influence on the 

 system adopted amongst the rooks, and as they never considered 

 whether the supply of trees to build nests in equalled the demand, 

 the number of nests and young rooks increased so fast, as to render it 

 absolutely necessary that fresh colonies should be established in the 

 neighbourhood ; and the original rookery, which was of large extent, 

 sent off detachments from time to time to adjacent places, and 

 amongst others, some high ash-trees, growing out of a pit at the cor- 

 ner of a meadow near the house, were selected as a favourite residence 

 for one of these detachments, which, in a few years, increased and 

 multiplied into a respectable rookery itself, containing from fifty to sixty 

 nests. In this peaceful retirement the rooks have continued to live 

 in harmony and quiet for some twelve or fifteen years, save and ex- 

 cept that annually, about the beginning of June, an attack is regularly 

 made upon the rooklings by the butler, groom, and gamekeeper, for 

 the sake of the excellent pigeon-pies they are supposed to be capable 

 of being converted into. But this disturbance of their juvenile 

 felicity is not permitted simply for the sake of saying of them, as the 

 old song said of the " four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie," 

 that it was " a dainty dish to set before a king," but because the num- 

 bers increased so fast, that the farmers complained of the injury done 

 to their crops ; and hence it became necessary to have a certain num- 

 ber from six to eight dozen, killed, in order to satisfy these seldom - 

 contented agriculturists, and to save the whole colony from being 

 decried : for farmers, while they admit that rooks do much good, yet 

 are always inclined to condemn them when they do a little occasional 

 harm. Many were the young rooks who, inheriting the craft and 

 cunning of their parents, set at nought all the manoeuvres of the 

 butler and his assistants, and when scared away by the sounds of the 

 early evening guns (not bells), betook themselves to the protection of 

 XII. 2 A 



