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The Gaelic Names of Birds. 47
nature of the country, rooks ha\e always been very common,
though never great favourites, for though such familiar neighbours
in tlie every day life of the Gael, yet we very seldom tind the rook
mentioned, either in their proverbs or poetry, excepting when
some disagreeable noise is likened to their noisy cawing in their
rookeries—as, for instance, when the bard Mac Codrum, disgusted
with the bad pipe music of Donald Bane, likens it to the cawing
of rooks.
—
" Ceol tha cho sgreataidh
Ri sgreadail nan ruciis."
In m;iny parts of the Higliiands, especially in Easter Ross, rooks
have become so numerous that measures have been taken to reduce
their numbers. However, rooks have been long accustomed to
persecution, and it does not seem to affect their numbers much.
As early as May 1424, we tind an Act of the Scots Parliament
against " Ruikes biggan in trees"; and again in March 1457,
James II. passed the following strict Act against looks and
"uther foules of riefe":— "Anent ruikes, crawes, and uther foules
of reife, as eirnes, bisseites, gleddes, mittales, the quhilk destroyis
baith cornes, and wild foules, sik as pertrickes, plovares, and
utheris. And as to the ruikes and crawes, biggand in orchards,
trees and uther i)laces : It is seen speedeful that they that sik
trees perteinis to, let tliem to big and destroy them Avith all their
])0wer, and in no waies that their birdes flee awaie. And qiihair
it is tainted that they big and their birdes flee, fmd the nest be
iounden in the trees at Beltane: the tree shall be faulted to the
King: bot gif they be redeemed fra him be them that they
perteined fir.st, and five shillinges to the King's unlaw\ And that
the said foules of reife all utterly be destroyed be all maner of
men, be all ingine of all maner of crafts that may be founden.
For the slaughter of them sail cause great multitudes of divers
kinds of wilde foules for man's sustentation." Grey quotes the
following original plan for catching rooks, from a curious old
work called the " Gentleman's Recreation," published in 1678
"How to take rooks when they ])ull up tlie corn by the roots.
Take some thick brown paper and divide a sheet into eight parts,
and make them up like sugar loaves ; then lime the inside of the
paper a very little (let them be limed three or four days before
you set them); then put some corn in them, and lay three-score of
them or more up and down the ground ; lay them as near as you
can under some clod of earth, and early in the morning before
they come to fted, and tlien stand at a distance and vou will see
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