THE ROOK. 



89 



community is punished with severity. The dehnquent is at- 

 tacked by those who are invested with authority ; he is by 

 them chastised according to the nature of his offence, and 

 sometimes banished from the commonwealth. They lay four 

 or five eggs, and the male and female sit by turns. When 

 the young are able to eat, they disgorge their food, which 

 they keep in reserve in their craw, or rather in a sort of bag 

 formed by the dilatation of the oesophagus. After the hatch- 

 ing season is over, they leave the lofty trees where they 

 nestled, and return not again till the month of August, and 

 begin to repair their nests in October. Herons often take 

 advantage of their absence, to lay and hatch in their nests. 

 Rooks remain the whole year in England ; but they are birds 

 of passage in many countries. In France, they announce the 

 winter ; and in Silesia, they are the forerunners of the sum- 

 mer. There are no rooks in Italy. The young ones are good 

 eating, and little inferior to the pigeon. 



Rooks are very noisy and clamorous, especially when they 

 have young. Ten or twelve nests are sometimes found on the 

 same tree, and a great number of trees, thus furnished, form a 

 "rookery." They seek out retirement and solitude, but pre- 

 fer settling near human dwellings. 



The appetite of the rook is confined to grain, worms and 

 insects ; it never prowls after carrion, nor touches flesh ; it has 

 also the muscular ventricle and the broad intestines of the 

 granivorous tribe. They commit serious ravages on new- 

 sown corn-fields, and on barley and oats when nearly ripe. 

 The strong bill penetrates the ground, and finds the root ker- 

 nel, by following the tender shoot, so soon as it appears above 

 ground. Large flocks fly together in the early harvest, and 

 destroy the nearly ripened oats. They are also hurtful to the 

 potato crops, both at the time of planting; and of forming in 

 the ground, as they are able to dig and find the tubers, and 

 then eat them. In order to prevent their depredations, the 

 simplest and most effiectual method is by scaring them away 

 by a person appointed to watch ; and the damage may be very 

 much lessened by preventing the breeding of a large number 

 by destroying the rookeries, and killing the young. A few 



