60 THE CROW. 



THE CROW. 



The most noticeable bird of our winter landscape is the 

 Common Crow. Neither cold nor snow can drive him 

 away, while, in mild open weather, he scorns the woods and 

 fields, and rises high in air against the passing breeze, as if 

 he were sole lord of the entire region. He is hardly ever 

 alone, and often appears in quite considerable flocks, some- 

 times in large numbers. To-day he is stepping about the 

 plowed fields and meadows with all his wonted stateliness. 

 What a splendid coat of glossy black he wears! He appears 

 quite as well on the wing, too, as on the ground, moving 

 with a steady, graceful energy, even in the raggedness of 

 his moulting period, when the loss of main pinions is seen 

 in the formidable gaps of either wing. Even his voice, 

 though very much lacking in compass and far from being 

 really musical, has a vigor and a significance amidst nature's 

 sounds, which is far from being unpleasing. In short, we 

 could easily be reconciled to him, aye, even pleased with 

 him, were it not for certain of his thievish and cruel habits 

 of diet. 



Firstly. He is the arch-disturber of the corn-fields. How 

 the farmer is obliged to tax his ingenuity in order to 

 secure himself, in part at least, against his depredations! 

 In that delightful book by Susan Fenimore Cooper, entitled 

 ^' Rural Hours," is a little paragraph well illustrating the 

 husbandman's resources m this respect. In her diary for 

 the 4th of June she says: "The cornfields are now well 

 garnished with Scare-crows, and it is amusing to see the 

 different devices employed for the purpose. Bits of tin 

 hung upon upright sticks are very general; lines of white 

 twine, crossing the field at intervals near the soil, are also 

 much in favor, and the Crows are said to be particularly shy 

 of this sort of network; other fields are guarded by a num- 



