lURDS /y THE FIELD AND GARDEN 191 
wireworms that a tlock of rooks will devour in a season is pro- 
die:ions, and we have it on the authority of Miss Ornierod, than 
whom no one has given greater study to the subject, that the 
wireworm will live for seven years, and that the “ click ” beetle 
into which the chrysalis of the wireworm eventually develops, 
is cajiable of laying no less than a million eggs. And nothing 
comes amiss with the wireworm. This worst of insect pests 
will destroy with equal effect the roots of corn, grass, or potato 
tubers, and the progeny of one single beetle is capable of spoil- 
ing a far greater proportion of the farmer’s crops than a whole 
flock of rooks, against whom he is for ever anxious to wage war. 
The cost of rook-scaring during the few weeks after the corn is 
sown and of rethatching ricks that have been pulled about in 
winter time must be but a small matter in comparison with 
the untold good wrought by the rook in his usual and everyday 
occupation. 
()f other birds that are of inestimable benefit to the agri- 
culturist the peewit and the lark are two of the most prominent. 
There is absolutely nothing that can be said against the former 
bird, and as a friend of the farmer it would be hard to find lus 
equal. He has no taste for corn or any other of the farmer’s 
crops, spending his time in the search for grubs and insects upon 
the fallows, and when the frost drives him from his usual haunts 
he betakes himself to the water meadows and ekes out a bare 
existence searching for food amongst the mud alongside of 
running streams. 
He is a wary bird and well able to protect himself from 
the gunner, and from this cause his numbers suffer but little 
diminution. The farmer’s hand is not against him, for he is 
generally regarded as a friend, as indeed he most truly is. But 
it is a thousand pities that the craze for plovers’ eggs is still 
as prevalent as ever, and it is to be regretted that the taking 
of them is not severely prohibited. Many observers have given 
it as their opinion that peewits are less common in many parts 
than formerh’, and it cannot be doubted that the annual collec- 
tion of their eggs for eating purposes has brought about this 
state of things. It would be a bad day for the farmer if the 
peewit were to become extinct. 
There is but one grievance which the farmer cherishes against 
that generally universal favourite, the lark. In very hard 
weather he commits some havoc amongst the j’oung clover, 
it being urged against him that he nips out the centre shoot of 
the plant. Opinions differ as to whether the actual harm done 
to the clover plant in this way is really serious, but, even if 
it is, it only happens in exceptional seasons when the land is 
frost-bound for weeks at a time and the birds are hard put to 
it for sustenance. At other times the farmer has no case against 
the lark, whom he should regard rather as a friend than an 
enemy. 
