172 PROJECTED BANISHMENT OF 



corn on its first appearance, in order to get at 

 the seed-grain still at the root of it. The petty- 

 pilfering lasts about three weeks, and during 

 this period we hire a boy at three-pence a day, 

 sometimes sixpence, to scare the birds away. 

 Some years we have no boy at all. Either 

 way the crops are apparently the same in quan- 

 tity every year. In winter the rook will attack 

 the corn-stacks which have lost part of their 

 thatch by a gale of wind. He is a slovenly 

 farmer who does not repair the damaged roof 

 immediately ; and still we have farmers in 

 Yorkshire of this description. The rook cer- 

 tainly is too fond of our walnuts, and it requires 

 to be sharply looked after when the fruit is 

 ripe. In breeding time it will twist off the 

 uppermost twigs of the English and Dutch 

 elms, and sometimes those of the oak in which 

 its nest is built, for the purpose of increasing it. 

 This practice gives the tops of the trees an un- 

 sightly appearance, and may injure their growth 

 in the course of time. Sycamores, beeches, 

 firs, and ashes, escape in great measure the 

 spoliation. 



" It ought to be generally known that, in 

 former times the North American colonists 



