A recent writer from the sportsman’s point of view speaks of the Rook as “this black robber,” and he says that there is no practical difference of opinion as to the question whether his benefits outweigh his depredations. Now, as a farmer, I confidently affirm that he does much more good than harm. He will sometimes uproot vegetables in getting at the worms round their roots. It is true also that he often robs the nests of the pheasant and the partridge; but, as I could easily show, he does far more good to the general community by furthering the labours of agriculturists, on whom so much depends, than harm to the sport of our leisured classes. A more social bird even than the gregarious starling, he flies in flocks, feeds in flocks, and builds in flocks. His everyday life may appear to be an uneventful one to the outside world, and most commonplace; yet it is full of adventure and of joy tempered with sorrows. Apparently a grave bird, he is brimful of humour and, at times, as full of play as a titmouse. Like all other links in the seemingly endless chain of nature, he is the victim of circumstances: without much ado he could count up his sincere friends, but his enemies are beyond his conception of numbers. From his winter homing quarters he comes with his company during February to inspect the colony of breeding nests which he regards as his peculiar domain, going back as night approaches to his sleeping-place until all is ready for the family life to begin. Rookeries vary, of course, greatly in size; one may be as a city or large town, again there will be a village, and here and there a small hamlet. There are in my own fields one of about a hundred and thirty nests, one of sixty, one of eight, and another of four nests. Of these latter I have some views of my own. I believe them to be those of odd and outlawed individuals who follow the other companies hither, but are socially considered as pariahs. My nearest neighbours are those of the sixty-two-nest village, and my last census-taking records about sixty-two married couples and thirty-six or more odd or unmated birds. These are all, of course, adult birds, their numbers reckoned before the young were hatched out.