perseverance of the old birds in the endeavor to relieve their famishing families, as many of them remained out searching for food quite in the dusk, and returned to their roosts long after the usual period for retiring. In this extremity it becomes a plunderer, to which by inclination it is not much addicted, and resorts to our newly-set potato-fields, digging out the cuttings. Ranks are seen sadly defective, the result of its labors, I fear; and the request of my neighbors now and then for a bird from my rookery, to hang up _in terrorem_ in their fields, is confirmatory of its bad name. In autumn a ripe pear, or a walnut, becomes an irresistible temptation, and it will occasionally obtain a good share of these fruits. In hard frost, it is pinched again, visits for food the banks of streams, and in conjunction with its congener the “villain crow,” becomes a wayfaring bird, and seeks a dole from every passing steed. Its life, however, is not always dark and sombre: it has its periods of festivity also. When the waters retire from meadows and low lands, where they have remained any time, a luxurious banquet is provided for this corvus, in the multitude of worms which it finds drowned on them. But its jubilee is the season of the cockchaffer (melolantha vulgaris), when every little copse, every oak, becomes animated with it and all its noisy, joyful family feeding and scrambling for the insect food. The power or faculty, be it by the scent, or by other means, that rooks possess of discovering their food, is very remarkable. I have often observed them alight on a pasture of uniform verdure, and exhibiting no sensible appearance of withering or decay, and immediately commence stocking up the ground. Upon investigating the object of their operations, I have found many heads of plantains, the little autumnal dandelions, and other plants, drawn out of the ground and scattered about, their roots having been eaten off by a grub, leaving only a crown of leaves upon the surface. This grub beneath, in the earth, the rooks had detected in their flight, and descended to feed on it, first pulling up the plant which concealed it, and then drawing the larvæ from their holes. By what intimation this bird had discovered its hidden food we are at a loss to conjecture; but the rook has always been supposed to scent matters with great discrimination.