242 
ROOKS. 
near their houses ; and in one instance, a moh of 
these misguided and ignorant people, proceeded to 
the residence of the principal gentleman in their 
neighbourhood, from whence they dragged him, and 
hung his body upon a gibbet, after which they at- 
tacked the rookery, and continued to shoot the rooks 
amidst loud acclamations. 
It is scarcely necessary to name the wire-worm as 
one of the greatest scourges to which the farmers are 
exposed ; and yet, it is to the Rook chiefly, if not 
entirely, that they can look for a remedy. Cased in 
its hard shelly coat, it eats its way into the Reart of 
the roots of corn, and is beyond the reach of weather, 
or the attacks of other insects, or small birds, whose 
short and softer hills cannot penetrate the recesses 
of its secure retreat buried some inches below the 
soil. The Rook alone can do so ; if watched, when 
seen feeding in a field of sprouting wheat, the heed- 
less observer will abuse him, when he sees him 
jerking up root after root of the rising crop ; but the 
careful observer will, if he examines minutely, de- 
tect in many of these roots, the cell of a wire-worm, 
in its silent and underground progress, inflicting 
death on stems of many future grains. Their saga- 
city, too, in discovering that a field of wheat, or a 
meadow, is suffering from the superabundance of 
some devouring insect, is deserving of notice. — 
Whether they find it out by sight, smell, or some 
additional unknown sense, is a mystery; hut that 
they do so is a fact beyond all contradiction. 
We remember a few years ago seeing, for several 
days, a flight of Rooks regularly resorting to a field 
close to the house ; and on walking over it, observed 
