126 BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
In 1870 came a great change in their habits. " Previous to 
that time they attacked the farmers' growing and harvested 
crops at the same time that they were destroymg untold 
quantities of grubs and noxious insects." But at about 
this period, " eggs of all kinds, young birds, small rodents, 
young rabbits, chickens and ducklings were devoured as 
greedily as ever the Carrion-Crow did the same thing. 
At the same time came a curious structural alteration. 
The feathers round the base of the bill, which always used 
to fall off during the young Rooks' first summer and winter 
were in many cases retained for years. There is no doubt 
this retention of these feathers was the -direct result of the 
assumption of Carrion-Crow habits by the Rooks. . . . ihe 
cause of such a sudden change to what may be considered 
ancestralhabits . . . is rather obscure. . . [and] Mr. JohnHarvie- 
Brown . . . traces it to two causes. The first one is the 
immense increase of the Starling, depriving the Rooks ot 
their grub and insect food. The other is the practice 
all over the country of spreading on the fields near the 
larger towns of so-called scavenger's manure or refuse. 
EggsheUs and garbage of all kinds are amongst the stuQ, 
and the Rooks compeUed to forage amongst it, coon leaxned 
a bad lesson."* Nowadays they are justly regarded by 
gamekeepers as equally destructive to an exposed nest ot 
eggs as any Carrion-Crow ; and I once saw one take two 
half-fledged Mistle-Thrushes out of their nest. Among 
ground-game they are almost as destructive as they are 
to the eggs of feathered game, and they have been seen 
to attack and kill a smaU leveret. These fresh depreda- 
tory habits aroused once more the human ire against 
the species ; and though about 1877 they may have 
attained to perhaps four-fifths of their maximum number 
reached in 1830-1835, their numbers to-day are not 
much more than in 1860, when they were at their 
lowest ebb. , -d i 
A long correspondence for and against the Rook was 
* Trans. D. and G. Nat. Hist. Soc, Kovember 16th, 1900. 
