628 Birds. 



having marked one of them, by a broken leg, which has followed us 

 across the Atlantic without ever being absent." 



They are easily tamed, and it is said they will live upon oil. They 

 are put to rather a curious use by the Faroese, who draw a wick 

 through their bodies, which are so saturated with oil that they are thus 

 enabled to use them as candles, and they are even sometimes used as 

 fuel ! How few of the animal creation are there which are not in 

 some way formed, by the Great Creator, for the use of man ! 



" Thus then to man the voice of Nature spake — 

 Go, from the creatures thy instruction take ; 

 Learn from the birds, what food the thickets yield ; 

 Learn from the beasts the physic of the field ; 

 Thy arts of building from the bee receive ; 

 Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave ; 

 Learn of the little nautilus to sail, 

 Spread the thin oar and catch the driving gale." 



J. Pemberton Bartlett. 



Kingston Rectory, May, 1844. 



Notes on the cause of the nudity of the throat fyc. and of the absence 

 of nasal bristles in the adult Rook. By A. E. Knox, Esq. M.A. 



So much has already been written about the rook, and the bird it- 

 self is so well known and so widely distributed, that ever since the 

 time of Virgil it has been a favourite with field naturalists, and volumes 

 have been compiled to illustrate its manners and domestic economy. 



There is, however, no point connected with the history of this bird 

 which has led to such frequent discussion, or concerning which so 

 many conflicting opinions have been maintained, as the cause of the 

 absence of the nasal bristles, and the nudity of the throat and portion 

 of the forehead which characterize the adult birds ; the young, it is 

 well known, present no such appearance. The question, then, has 

 hitherto been, — Is this an original peculiarity in the rook, or does it 

 result from the habit of thrusting its beak into the ground in search 

 of worms and grubs ? 



Two years have now elapsed since I made up my mind to attempt 

 to solve this mystery. I found that many even of our recent ornitho- 

 logists, who had ventured an opinion on the matter, were strangely at 

 variance ; while others again, who had written or compiled long his- 

 tories of the rook, had passed over this momentous question in omi- 

 nous silence. I was therefore at liberty, with Bewick and Waterton, 



