ROOK. 429 



* There are very few instances on record of this bird being found in 

 England. One was killed in Cornwall, and another at Dunkeld, in 

 Scotland. It is said to be plentiful in Germany, Sicily, and Malta, 

 where it is sold in the markets and poulterers' shops ; it is also 

 found in Sweden, and Denmark. It haunts the woods in the breeding 

 season, and makes a nest in a hole in the ground. Selby and Tem- 

 minck say, the hole of a decayed tree, laying from four to seven eggs 

 of a clear bluish white ; at other seasons they congregate with rooks 

 and other birds in tilled grounds, in search of food, which consists of 

 grasshoppers, snails, millipedes, and other insects. It is a bird of a 

 fierce and restless disposition.* 



ROOD GOOSE.— A name for the Brent Goose. 



ROOK (Corvus prcedatorius, Rennie.) 



*Corvus frugilegus, Linn. Syst. 1. p. 156. 4. — Gmel. Syst. 1. p. 366. sp. 4. — Lath, 

 Ind. Orn. 1. p. 152. sp. 5 — Flem. Br. Anim. p. 88. — Comix nigra frugilesa, 

 Rail, Syn. p. 83. A . 3.— Will. p. 84. t. 18.— Cornix frugilega, Briss. 2. p. 16.^3. 



— Le Freu ou Frayonne, Buff. Ois. 3. p. 55.— Ib. PI. Enl. 484 Freu, Temm. 



Man. d'Orn. 1. p. 110.— Saat Rabe, Bechst. Naturg. Deut. 2. p. 1199 Meyer, 



Tasschenb. Deut. 1. p. 97 Frisch, Vog. t. 64.— Rook, Br. Zool. 2. p. 221. 



76.— Arct. Zool. 2. p. 250. A Will. (Angl.) p. 123.— Lewin's Br. Birds, 1. 



t. 35 Lath. Syn. 1. p. 372. 4.— Ib. Supp. p. 76.— Mont. Orn. Diet.— Bewick's 



Br. Birds, 1. p, 71 Pult. Cat. Dorset, p. 4 Shaw's Zool. 7. p. 347 Selby, 



pi. 30. p. 72.* 



This well-known species of crow, is about the size of the carrion 

 crow, and of the same black colour ; the upper parts, like that bird, 

 glossed with purple. The only marks of distinction in mature birds is, 

 that this is bare of feathers about the base of the bill, which is whitish 

 and scurfy. But as this is acquired by the bird's habit of thrusting 

 its bill into the ground after worms and various insects, so the young 

 of these two birds are not to be discriminated, except by their note, 

 that of the rook not being so deep and hoarse as the crow. In their 

 habits there is an essential difference, this species being content with 

 feeding on the insect tribe, particularly the larvae of the cock-chaffer. 

 But rendering the husbandman this piece of service, it repays itself by 

 taking some portion of his corn also. It is gregarious at all seasons, 

 resorting constantly to the same trees every spring to breed, when the 

 nests may be seen crowded one over another, upon the upper branches. 

 It lays four or five eggs, much like that of the crow, of a greenish 

 colour, spotted and blotched with dusky. After their young have taken 

 wing, they all forsake their nest-trees, returning to them again in 

 October to roost ; but as winter comes on, they generally select more 

 sheltered places at night in some neighbouring wood, to which they 

 fly off together. 



