CHAPTER V.

CROWS AND ROOKS :-THE CARRION AND HOODED CROWS. -THE

THE

With anxious heart the farmer looks around,

And marks the first green blade that breaks the ground;
In fancy sees his trembling oats uprun,

His tufted barley yellow with the sun;

But still unsafe the big swollen grain below,
A favourite morsel with the Rook and Crow.
From field to field the flock increasing goes,
To level crops most formidable foes.
Their danger well the wary plunderers know,
And place a watch on some conspicuous bough;
Yet oft the skulking gunner, by surprise,
Will scatter death amongst them as they rise.

BLOOMFIELD.

HE Corvida, or Crow family of birds, includes in its group several species well known in Britain; these are the Carrion and Hooded Crows, the Rook, the Raven, the Jackdaw, the Jay, and the Magpie. Members of the Crow tribe are found in every part of the globe, except in the very coldest climates. They are among the most perfectly organised of all birds; their digestive organs enable them to derive nourishment from a great variety of substances; they are therefore omnivorous feeders; their feet are adapted either for perching on trees or traversing the earth in search of food; their wings are adapted for powerful and sustained flight; their sense both of sight and smell is exceedingly keen; and so cunning are they that the line. which divides reason from instinct, at all times difficult to trace, seems to be obliterated. In our cold northern regions the plumage of these birds is of a sombre cast, but elsewhere, and in the tropics especially, they exhibit great

variety and brilliancy; some there are with breasts and wings marked with gold and silver, like those of the spangled fowls, and some, as in Australia, perfectly white. Crows of this spotless hue occasionally appear in our own country, but they only occur singly, and as rare exceptions to the general rule. We have no species of Crow which is altogether white, only now and then an individual. One of our Crows, that is, the Magpie, has a considerable admixture of white in its plumage, and the dark portions are set off by a fine purple or greenish gloss at places; and another, the Jay, has some pretty variegations in its dress of reddish-brown and grey; but, on the whole, the Crows with us are a dusky family group, and by no means in favour with cultivators and game preservers, who wage a war of extermination against them, although we are inclined to think that the quantity of carrion, worms, slugs, and the larvæ of insects which they destroy, far more than counterbalances the damage they do to the crops and young game. It has been more than once found that when these

To level crops most formidable foes,

as Bloomfield describes them, have been absent, greater injury has resulted to the crop from the unchecked ravages of grub and caterpillar than that which the birds could possibly cause.

The Crow the Crow! the great black Crow!
He cares not to meet us wherever we go;
He cares not for man, beast, friend, nor foe,
For nothing will eat him he well doth know.
Know! know! you great black Crow!
It's a comfort to feel like a great black Crow!

The Crow! the Crow! the great black Crow!
He loves the fat meadow his taste is low;
He loves the fat worms, and he dines in a row,
With fifty fine cousins all black as a sloe.

Sloe! sloe! you great black Crow!

But it's jolly to fare like a great black Crow.

THE CARRION CROW.

The Crow! the Crow! the great black Crow!
He lives for a hundred years and mo';
He lives till he dies, and he dies as slow
As the morning mists down the hill that go.
Go! go! you great black Crow!

But it's fine to live and die like a great black Crow!

109

It is thus that the poet Bailey introduces us to the CARRION CROW (Corvus Corone), sometimes called the Gor, Black or Corby Crow; the Black-neb, the Hoddy, or the Bran, a bird so familiar to all persons in this country, that it scarcely needs a description. This is a most voracious bird, according to all accounts, and one of the filthiest of feeders, preferring flesh in a state of putrifaction to that which is fresh and clean: so has God ordered it for good and wise purposes. The creature is intended for a scavenger, and his greatest pleasure lies in his round of professional duties.

Where there is an abundant supply of food, there will a considerable number of Carrion Crows be found together; but, as a general rule, it is not a gregarious bird, rather keeping in pairs, which build and rear their young far apart from any other pair. The places which they select are rocks and tall trees, apart, but not far away, from the

open moor, hilly pasture, cultivated field, or sea shore, where they betake themselves to feed on small quadrupeds, and even larger ones, such as sheep, if they be weak and sickly, young birds, eggs, crustaceous and molluscous. animals, worms, grubs, grain, and any decayed animal matter which may be lying about. So Mant tells us

The Carrion Crow so busy, see,
Intent, on yonder forked tree,
His future mansion to prepare,
Of plundered twigs, with wool and hair
Imbedded. Scanty is his claim
To please us; and his very name
May breed disgust, as to the sight
It shows the insatiate appetite:
Coarse, indistinctive, yet 't is hence
His Maker wills him to dispense

Man's health and comfort; while for food
He thins the reptile's noxious brood;
And, revelling on his putrid fare,

From taint relieves the touched air.

It is rather a bulky nest which the Crow builds of twigs, and lines with moss, wool, hair, and other soft materials. The eggs, of pale bluish green, spotted and blotched with dark brown and purplish grey, are from four to six in number, of a longish oval form. The bird is an early breeder, generally building a new nest, or repairing an old one, near the beginning of February. The flight of this Crow is similar to that of the Raven, being sedate and direct, generally performed by regularly-timed flaps, with the wings stretched out to their fullest extent; it walks, too, like the Raven, with a steady and measured pace, and has a croak like that bird, only that it is clearer and less sonorous: at a distance it is not easily distinguished from the Rook, the plumage of which bird is less close and compact, and its walk quicker, and with the bill more inclined towards the ground. Close at hand the species are easily distinguished, the bill of the Rook being longer, and differently formed, while the feathers at the base are abraded by its being con

stantly thrust up to that part into the earth. The two birds consort but little together, although some ornithologists affirm that they interbreed.

According to the testimony of Mr. Hogg, of Stobo Hope, Scotland, who has furnished Macgillivray with an excellent account of the habits of this bird in his locality, it often destroys sheep and their young in the lambing season, taking advantage of the time when the pains of travail are on the former, to pluck out their eyes and their tongues, and attacking and killing the lambs when they are just born, and very weak. This is a serious charge, and we wish we could doubt its truth; but the statement is too well authenticated to admit a doubt.

On the evidence of Mr. Weir, another count in the indictment of this destructive bird is established. He says:'Carrion Crows are among the most voracious of birds. There was scarcely a pheasant's or partridge's, or even the smallest bird's nest, that escaped their penetrating search; nay, so very intent was the male on plunder, that he used to come very early every morning into a young plantation, within forty yards of my house, and examine most minutely every nest in which hens were accustomed to lay. Even this did not satisfy his rapacious appetite; for, should a duckling or a chicken happen to wander a little distance from its mother, he was sure to carry it off. In addition to these, he killed a considerable number of young hares. I have even seen him chase them, and pounce upon them like a hawk, when they were more than half grown.' And Montague states that he has seen it pursue a pigeon, and strike it dead from the top of a barn; while another observer tell us, that 'a Carrion Crow was observed to steal a young duck, which it pounced upon while in a pond, and carried it off in his bill.' Then how did he kill it? Listen. In this case the assassin did not drop the duck in order to kill it, but laid it on the ground, and then walked