It is but simple justice to these often censured birds, to mention the service that they at times perform for us in our pasture lands. There is no plant that I endeavor to root out with more persistency in these places than the turfy hair-grass (aira cæspitosa). It abounds in all the colder parts of our grass lands, increasing greatly when undisturbed, and, worthless itself, overpowers its more valuable neighbors. The larger turfs we pretty well get rid of; but multitudes of small roots are so interwoven with the pasture herbage, that we cannot separate them without injury; and these our persevering rooks stock up for us in such quantities, that in some seasons the fields are strewed with the eradicated plants. The whole so torn up does not exclusively prove to be the hair-grass, but infinitely the larger portion consists of this injurious plant. The object of the bird in performing this service for us is to obtain the larvæ of several species of insects, underground feeders, that prey on the roots, as Linnæus long ago observed upon the subject of the little nard grass (nardus stricta). This benefit is partly a joint operation: the grub eats the root, but not often so effectually as to destroy the plant, which easily roots itself anew; but the rook finishes the affair by pulling it up to get at the larvæ, and thus prevents all vegetation; nor do I believe that the bird ever removes a specimen that has not already been eaten, or commenced upon, by the caterpillar. The rook entices its young from the breeding trees, as soon as they can flutter to any other. These young, for a few evenings after their flight, will return with their parents, and roost where they were bred; but they soon quit their abode, and remain absent the whole of the summer months. As soon however as the heat of summer is subdued, and the air of autumn felt, they return and visit their forsaken habitations, and some few of them even commence the repair of their shattered nests; but this meeting is very differently conducted from that in the spring; their voices have now a mellowness approaching to musical, with little admixture of that harsh and noisy contention, so distracting at the former season, and seems more like a grave consultation upon future procedure; and as winter approaches they depart for some other place. The object of this meeting is unknown; nor are we aware that any other bird revisits the nest it has once forsaken. Domestic fowls, indeed, make use again of their old nests; but this is never, or only occasionally, done by birds in a wild state. The daw and rock-pigeon will build in society with their separate kindred: and the former even revisits in autumn the places it had nestled in. But such situations as these birds require, the ruined castle, abbey, or church tower, ledge in the rock, &c., are not universally found, and are apparently occupied from necessity. The rooks appear to associate from preference to