290 THE CARRION CROW. 



upon the rocks. Their carnivorous propensity sometimes prompts them to seize upon young 

 fowl and eggs. A variety rather smaller, called the Florida Crow, is known. 



THE common CARRION CROW, so plentiful in many countries, much resembles in habits 

 and appearance the bird which has just been described, and may almost be reckoned as a 

 miniature raven. 



In many of its customs the crow is very raven-like, especially in its love for carrion, and 

 its propensity for attacking the eyes of any dead or dying animal. Like the raven, it has 

 been known to attack game of various kinds, although its inferior size forces it to call to its 

 assistance the aid of one or more of its fellows before it can successfully cope with the larger 

 creatures. Rabbits and hares are frequently the prey of this bird, which pounces on them as 

 they steal abroad to feed, and while they are young is able to kill and carry them off without 

 difficulty. The Crow also eats reptiles of various sorts, frogs and lizards being common 

 dainties, and is a confirmed plunderer of other birds' nests, even carrying away the eggs of 

 game and poultry by the simple device of driving the beak through them and flying away 

 with them thus impaled. Even the large egg of the duck has thus been stolen by the Crow. 

 Sometimes it goes to feed on the seashore, and there finds plenty of food among the crabs, 

 shrimps, and shells that are found near low-water mark, and ingeniously cracks the harder 

 shelled creatures by flying with them to a great height and letting them fall upon a con- 

 venient rock. 



The Crow, unlike the rook, is not a gregarious bird, being generally seen either single or 

 in pairs, or at the most only in little bands of four or five, consisting of the parents and their 

 children. In the autumn evenings, however, they assemble in bands of ten or twelve before 

 going to roost, and make a wonderful chattering, as if comparing notes of the events which 

 have occurred during the day, and communicating to each other their latest experiences, for 

 the benefit of the rising generation. 



The nest of the Crow is invariably placed on some tree remote from the habitations of other 

 birds, and is a structure of considerable dimensions, and very conspicuous at a distance. It is 

 always fixed upon one of the topmost branches, so that to obtain the eggs safely requires a steady 

 head, a practised foot, and a ready hand, the uncultivated germs of the professional acrobat. 



Generally the nest is rather loosely constructed, and more saucer than cup-shaped ; but I 

 remember an instance where it was very firmly made and quite deep. In a little copse that 

 was planted along one side of a valley, an oak-tree had sprung up about half-way down the 

 declivity, and, as is the custom with trees in such situations, had grown inclining towards the 

 somewhat abrupt angle formed by the shape of the ground on which it stood. As there had 

 been formerly many other trees around it, it had been drawn up like a maypole, being long, 

 slender, and swinging about with every breeze. The tree was not more than forty feet high ; 

 but as it was bent in the middle and bowed over the valley, its summit was nearly a hundred 

 feet from the ground below. 



It was with the greatest difficulty that I reached the nest, for the tree yielded like a 

 carter's whip with my weight, although I could not approach nearer than arm's length to 

 the nest, and after three attempts I was finally baffled in my endeavor to obtain the eggs. 

 Although the top of the tree was then nearly level with the horizon, and swinging about 

 most alarmingly in the wind that rushed through the valley, not an egg was thrown out of 

 its place, and the nest was so much deeper than ordinary, that I could not succeed in with- 

 drawing the eggs from their cradle. It seems an easy matter to take eggs out of a nest ; but 

 if the reader will bear in mind that when the slender tree-stem to which one is clinging bends 

 nearly double with one's weight, that the elasticity of the wood dances one up and down 

 through an arc of four or five feet, and that a strong wind is at the same time acting on the 

 foliage of the tree and swaying it from side to side, and that there is a clear fall of some hun- 

 dred feet below, he will comprehend that it is not so simple a matter to spare a hand long 

 enough to take an egg from a rather distant spot, and to do so in so delicate a manner that 

 the egg remains unbroken. 



The materials of which the Crow's nest is made are very various, but always consist of a 



