208 
Observations on the various Insects 
a crop." * The following remarks also, by Mr. T. G. Clithero, 
are exceedingly interesting. " In the neighbourhood of my native 
place, in the county of York, is a rookery, belonging to W, Vava- 
sour, Esq., of Weston, in Wharfdale, in which it is estimated that 
there are 10,000 rooks ; that 1 lb. of food a- week is a very mode- 
rate allowance for each bird, and that nine-tenths of their food 
consist of worms, insects, and their larvae ; for although they do 
considerable damage to the fields for a few weeks in seed-time 
and a few weeks in harvest, particularly in backward seasons, yet 
a very large proportion of their food, even at these seasons, con- 
sists of insects and worms, which (if we except a few acorns and 
walnuts in autumn) compose at all other times the whole of their 
subsistence. Here then, if my data be correct, there is the enor- 
mous quantity of 468,000 lbs., or 209 tons, of worms, insects, and 
their larvae, destroyed by the rooks of a single rookery in one 
year. To every one who knows how very destructive to vegeta- 
tion are the larvae of the tribes of insects, as well as worms, fed 
upon by rooks, some slight idea may be formed of the devastation 
which rooks are the means of preventing." j Wagtails and robins 
are also very fond of the Wireworm, and probably sparrows ; 
blackbirds and thrushes are constantly hunting the grass for them 
and other larvae and pupae. 
Pheasants and partridges are likewise exceedingly beneficial in 
this respect, and in some measure compensate the farmer for the 
loss of the rook, crow, &c. : when we find the game in the turnip- 
fields they are usefully employed in picking out the Wireworms, 
and the crops of the pheasant are frequently found full of them. 
I was not aware that the plover or lapwing, called also " pewit," 
lived very much upon Wireworms, until a friend in Norfolk in- 
formed me of the fact. In the marshy districts of our eastern 
counties this bird was formerly exceedingly abundant, as well as 
the ruff and ree, but the gun and the nest-hunter have so thinned 
their numbers that the lapwing is becoming scarce, and the latter 
have almost abandoned our shores, and, as might be expected, the 
Wireworms seem to be increasing rapidly in such localities. On 
opening the lapwings that have been shot, their crops were 
found full of VVireworms, and as it is suj)j)osed that one bird 
would eat a hundred in a day, the Hocks of forty, fifty, and up- 
wards that were constantly to be seen some years since would 
clear off a very large number in a season. Their assistance, how- 
ever, is departed and gone for ever, for the high j)rice which the 
eggs fetch in the market cause the peasantry to look so carefully 
after the nests that the only chance the lapwing has of escaping 
destruction is to seek the wildest districts of Scotland and Ireland, 
where their eggs not being so essential a luxury as they are con- 
•I- Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. vi. p. 142. 
