'Ware the Gun 223 



At the same time they can perfectly well distinguish a 

 gun from a walking-stick. If you enter a meadow with a 

 gun under your arm, and find a flock feeding, they imme- 

 diately cease searching for food and keep a strict watch on 

 your movements ; and if you approach they are off directly. 

 If you carry a walking-stick only, you may pass within 

 thirty yards sometimes, and they take little notice, pro- 

 vided you use the stick in the proper way. But now lift 

 it, and point it at the nearest rook, and in an instant he is 

 up with a * caw ' of alarm — though he knows it is not a 

 gun — and flies just above the surface of the ground till he 

 considers himself safe from possibility of danger. Often 

 the whole flock will move before that gesture. It is 

 noticeable that no wild creatures, birds or animals, like 

 anything pointed at them ; you may swing your stick 

 freely, but point it, and off goes the finch that showed no 

 previous alarm. So, too, dogs do not seem easy if a stick 

 is pointed at them. 



Eooks are easily approached in the autumn, when 

 gorging the acorns. They may often be seen flying carry- 

 ing an acorn in the bill. Sometimes a flock will set to 

 work and tear up the grass by the roots over a wide space 

 — perhaps nearly half an acre — in search of a favourite 

 beetle. The grass is pulled up in little wisps, just about 

 as much as they can hold in their beaks at a time. In 

 spring they make tracks through the mowing-grass — not 

 in all the meadows, but only in one here and there, where 

 they find the food they prefer. These tracks are very 

 numerous, and do the grass some damage. Besides 

 following the furrows made by the plough, and destroying 

 grubs, beetles, wireworm, and other pests in incalculable 

 numbers, they seem to find a quantity of insect food in 

 unripe corn; for they often frequent wheatfields only just 



