By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



99 



bird against which he urges constant and unpitying warfare " and 

 he excuses himself for so doing on the plea that he has so often 

 detected it destroying his most favorite birds and eggs that he has 

 no pity on it : and Mr. Knox, the intelligent author of " Game 

 birds and Wild Fowl " has not a word to say in its favour ; not 

 even Mr. Waterton, the general champion of the oppressed, has a 

 good word for the Hooded Crow ; so that we may congratulate 

 ourselves that it only appears in Wiltshire occasionally : its visits 

 however are frequent enough to render it familiar to most people : 

 I have myself often seen it on the Marlborough downs, and I have 

 many notices of it from various parts of the County, more especially 

 in the neighbourhood of Salisbury, where it frequents the water 

 meadows in the winter months, at which season only it migrates 

 so far south : its true habitat is northern Europe, where I have 

 seen it in great abundance, for it is the representative of the Cor- 

 vidae there, and very tame and familiar it seemed, searching the 

 newly mown meadows for worms and slugs, and marching on the 

 roads in front of our horses, just as its congener the rook does here. 

 On the eastern coast of England I have found it in some numbers, 

 as it resorts to the sea-shore for the never failing supply of food 

 which it finds in the shell-fish and other marine productions thrown 

 up by the tides : and Bishop Stanley says it may frequently be 

 seen after vain attempts to break through the hard shell of a 

 cockle or muscle, to seize it in its bill, mount with it to a great 

 height, and then let it fall on a hard rock, by which it is broken, 

 and the bird has nothing more to do than to reap the fruit of its 

 forethought. In colour the head, throat, wings, and tail, are black, 

 the rest of the plumage smoke grey. It is called the Hooded Crow 

 from its black head, and the Royston Crow, as it was supposed to 

 be peculiar to that district, where in truth I have seen it in con- 

 siderable numbers : it is also provincially named the Grey-backed 

 and the Scaul Crow. 



"Rook" (Corvus fragilegus). Having devoted a whole paper 

 to this most familiar bird, and endeavoured to prove its value in 

 destroying grubs, so far exceeding any injury it may commit in 

 occasionally consuming corn, I need add but little more about it : 



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