Birds, 633 



a limited extent, of applying to the same purpose as the rook the elas- 

 tic skin of the throat. I have had favourable opportunities of observ- 

 ing the raven, the crow, the jay and the jackdaw, during the breeding 

 season. When the raven returns to his young ones, after feasting on 

 the decomposed flesh of a large quadruped (which is perhaps his fa- 

 vourite food), he contrives to secrete a tolerable supply in his pouch, 

 but the excrescence thus caused is small compared with that of the 

 rook, when the relative proportions of the two birds are taken into 

 consideration ; and on returning from a foraging expedition with a 

 young rabbit or duckling in his beak, his pouch is empty, and the 

 prey is broken up near the nest before the young ones are fed. The 

 jay and the daw have the same power, in a still more limited degree, 

 and exercise it accordingly, under similar circumstances ; but all 

 these birds, when in a state of nature, are more carnivorous in their 

 propensities than the rook, and procure the greater portion of their 

 food above ground. The carrion crow r , at this season, feeds chiefly on 

 eggs, young poultry and game, mice and carrion ; and I once took 

 from the mouth and from underneath the tongue of an old jay (which 

 had been shot by a keeper while in the act of feeding its young), se- 

 veral oak-caterpillars and fragments of beetles (apparently a small 

 species of Melolontha), with which the dilatable skin had been par- 

 tially distended, while the stomach contained, besides beetles, several 

 pieces of a slow-worm, particles of the shells of small birds' eggs, 

 and the heads and claws of unfledged young ones. The rook, on the 

 other hand, as I have shown, procures food for himself and his young 

 at this season, almost exclusively from beneath the surface of the 

 earth. He is, par excellence, a digger ; and if, among the various 

 changes and modifications to which the nomenclature of birds seems 

 to be liable, this species of Corvus should ever be voted a new speci- 

 fic title, I would humbly suggest that of fodiens, as at least more 

 applicable and distinctive than some which have occasionally been 

 proposed as worthy of superseding the old hmnwanfrupilegus. 



A, E. Knox, 

 New Grove, Petworth, May, 1844. 



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