ROOK. 
429 
* There are very few instances on record of this bird being- found in 
Eng-land. 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 {CoTvus prcedatovius-) Rennie.) 
*Corvus frugilegus, Linn. Syst. 1. p. 156. 4. — Gmel.Sjst. 1. p. 366. sp. 4.' — Lath. 
Ind. Prn. 1. p. 152. sp. 5 — Flem. Br. Anim. p. 88. — Cornix nigra frugilega, 
Raii, Syn. p. 83. A. 3. — Will. p. 84. 1. 18. — Cornix frugilega, Briss. 2. p. 16. 3, 
— Le Freu ou Frayonne, Bujf'. Ois. 3. p. 55. — Ib. PI. Enl. 484. — Freu, Temm. 
Man. d’Orn. 1. p. 110. — Saat Rabe, Bechst. Naturg. Deul. 2. p. 1199 Meyer, 
Tasschenb. Deut. 1. p. 97. — Frisch, Vbg. t. 64.— Rook, Br. Zool. 2. p. 221. 
76.- — Arct. Zool. 2. p. 250. A. — Will. (Angl.) p. 123. — Lewins Br. Birds, 1. 
t. 35 Lath. Syn. 1. p. 372. 4. — Ih. 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. 12.* 
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. 
