The writer attributes this alarming increase of rooks to “a desire on the part of gentlemen to cause them to be preserved with the same watchfulness they do their game.”  The most effectual means of deterring the rook from their depredations, is, he says, “to obtain several of these birds at a period of the year when they can be more easily taken; then cut them open, and preserve them by salt.  In the spring, during the seed time, these rooks are to be fastened down to the ground with their wings spread, and their mouths extended by a pebble, as if in great torture.  This plan has been found so effectual, that even in the vicinity of large preserves, the fields where the dead birds have been so placed, have not been visited by a single rook.”

The scarcity of the rook in France, and the antipathy which the French have to that bird is thus accounted for:—­

“The fact has been often related by a very respectable Catholic Priest, who resided many years at Chipping-hill, in Witham, that such was the arbitrary conduct of the owners of abbeys and monasteries in France, in preserving and cultivating the rook and the pigeon, that they increased to such numbers as to become so great a pest, as to destroy the seed when sown, and the young plants as soon as they appeared above the ground; insomuch, that the farmer, despairing of a reward for his labour, besides the loss of his seed, the fields were left barren, and the supply of bread corn was, in consequence, insufficient to meet the necessities of so rapidly increasing a people.  The father of the gentleman to whom we have alluded, was, for this offence, one of the first victims to his imprudence.  The revolutionary mob proceeded to his residence, from whence they took him, and hung his body upon a gibbet; they next proceeded to destroy the rooks and pigeons which he had cultivated in great numbers, and strived to preserve with the same tenacity as others do in this country.  We are told by the son of this martyr to his own folly, that the mob continued to shoot the birds amidst the loudest acclamations, and that they exulted in the idea that in each victim they witnessed the fall of an aristocrat.”

* * * * *

THE BANANA TREE.

The amount and rapidity of produce of this plant probably exceed that of any other in the known world.  In eight or nine months after the sucker has been planted, clusters of fruit are formed; and in about two months more they may be gathered.  The stem is then cut down, and a fresh plant, about two-thirds of the height of the parent stem, succeeds, and bears fruit in about three months more.  The only care necessary is to dig once or twice a year round the roots.  According to our author, on 1,076 square feet, from 30 to 40 banana trees may be planted in Mexico, which will yield in the space of the year 4,414 lbs. avoirdupois of fruit; while the same space