ROOKS. 
241 
been generally obeyed ; the immediate consequence 
being an increase of grubs, and their depredations. 
For, allowing that the Rook 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 
summers evening, swarms with cockchaffers, and 
other insects of the beetle tribe ; but unless they are 
naturalists, they do not know, that each of those cock- 
chaffers or beetles has been living under-ground for 
no less than from three to four years, in the form 
of a large whitish grub, devouring incessantly 
the tender roots of grasses, and every description of 
grain ; and that it is in search of them the Rooks flock 
round the plough-share, and thrusting their hills 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 cockchaffers. 
In France, again, many provinces were so ravaged 
by grubs, that a premium was offered by govern- 
ment 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 Revolution 
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 
VOL. I. R 
