Grouse disease : its cause and remedies / D.G.F. MacDonald.

  • Macdonald, Duncan George Forbes, 1823?-1884.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Grouse disease : its cause and remedies / D.G.F. MacDonald. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that he does not uproot one patch in entirety before proceeding to another part of the field. This fact alone might suggest that his motive was something different from a direct attack on the wheat itself; but if it required further confirmation it will be found in examination of the uprooted plants, and still more, if he is scared away just as he has turned up one plant, and that is at once inspected, the actual wire- worm may be found, for which the rook has been searching. Similar evidence of the benefit of the rook’s operations may be found in a turnip field, especially when the turnip plant is young. The sparrow does not disclose such palpable evidences of useful work, but his value, like that of many another blessing, is best appreciated when he is absent from the district, and when, in place of him, all sorts of insect pests prey upon the crops. That both rook and sparrow should, during the week or two when grain is ripening, be tempted to prey upon it, is intel- ligible; but the cost of “lenting” a ripening corn field is very small, compared to the loss of crop which ensues when the protection of these birds is removed for the whole of the earlier part of the season. The farmer himself wrould be the first to deride a sugges- tion that sheep-dogs should be exterminated because they might now and then be tempted to help them- selves to a bone, or even a joint, when the stock has been converted into mutton. “ One reason for the crusade against rooks and