198 
ROOKS. 
harvest, by an order to kill the Eooks having been generally 
obeyed, the immediate consequence being an increase of 
grubs and their depredations. For, allowing that the Eook 
may do an occasional injury to the husbandman, it confers 
benefits in a far greater proportion, and to an extent of which 
few are aware. Some of our readers, who live in the southern ! 
counties, know full well how the air, on a summer’s evening, } 
swarms with cockchafers and other insects of the beetle tribe; j 
but, unless they are naturalists, they do not know that each 
of those cockchafers or beetles has been living under- ground 
for no less than from three to four years, in the form of a I 
large whitish grub, devouring incessantly the tender roots of 
grasses, and every description of grain; and that it is in 
search of them the Eooks flock round the ploughshare, and, 
thrusting their bills into the loosened earth, devour these 
ruinous root-eaters by thousands and tens of thousands. So ; 
injurious are they, indeed, in favourable seasons, that the sum 
of twenty- five pounds was once allowed to a poor farmer in ! 
^Norfolk as a compensation for his losses; and the man and 
his servant declared that they had actually gathered eighty : 
bushels of cockchafers. ! 
In France, again, many provinces, were so ravaged by 
grubs, that a premium was offered by government for the 
best mode of ensuring their destruction; and yet, singularly 
enough, so little were the people acquainted with the real 
and best mode of stopping the mischief, that when their 
dreadful Eevolution broke out, accompanied with murder and 
bloodshed which can never be forgotten, the country people, 
amongst other causes of dissatisfaction with their superiors, 
alleged their being fond of having rookeries near their houses; 
and, in one instance, a mob of these misguided and ignorant 
people proceeded to the residence of the principal gentleman 
in the neighbourhood, from whence they dragged him, and 
hung his body upon a gibbet, after which they attacked the 
rookery, and continued to shoot the Eooks amidst load 
acclamations. 
It is scarcely necessary to name the wire-worm as one of 
the greatest scourges to which the farmers are exposed; and 
