REPORT ON THE FOOD FOUND IN THE 
ROOK, STARLING AND CHAFFINCH. 
Fred. V. Theobald, M.A., F.E.S., etc. 
AND 
William McGowan, F.S.I, 
South-Eastern Agricultural College, Wye. 
An investigation and tabulation of the food contents of the 
rook, starling and chaffinch was undertaken by the writers in 
1912 under a scheme drawn up by a special Committee of the 
British Association for the Advancement of Science, appointed 
in the autumn of 1908. This Committee, known as the 
“ Economic Ornithological Committee,” owed its inception to 
Dr. Gordon Hewitt, the present chief of the Dominion of 
Canada Entomological Department. Similar work has been 
carried out by Mr. H. S. Leigh, Secretary to the Committee, 
at the University of Manchester, whose report forms Part II. 
of this Supplement. This work has been carried out in 
co-operation with the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, to 
whom the writers are greatly indebted, not only for help given 
in collecting specimens, but for having obtained for the Com- 
mittee a grant of money from the Development Fund which 
has enabled them to complete this survey. 
It has been found impossible to get correspondents to send 
in birds regularly in the numbers requested, and thus in a 
few cases no quite consecutive account of the food can be 
given. 
Even if this had been done, however, it would have been 
difficult to ensure that the birds sent in had been feeding in 
the same locality where they were shot ; starlings and rooks 
fly afar and those shot in any one locality may have been 
previously feeding many miles away. Some starlings shot at 
Wye, and at least two rooks, shot some years ago, contained 
marine organisms, and yet this village is situated 10 miles in 
