196 ENGLISH BIRD LIFE 



utmost vigilance. Together they may be seen, 

 with slow, heavy flight, quartering the ground care- 

 fully. They have no hawk- or owl-like skill in 

 capturing strong living prey, but an unfailing 

 instinct seems to lead them to the place where any 

 weak or helpless thing chances to be lying. When 

 the coast is clear, a turn may be taken on the out- 

 skirts of the farm buildings or in the stackvard, 

 where a stray chicken or duckling may be picked 

 up. Away in the mowing-grass a tiny leveret may 

 be crouching, or amidst the brambles and nettles 

 of the hedgeside the eggs of a Partridge be found. 

 But the Black Crow is no epicure. The decaying 

 remains of a rabbit killed by a weasel afford him 

 quite a satisfactory meal, and failing this, any 

 neglected heap of debris will be investigated, in- 

 cluding the refuse of fish cast aside by the fisher- 

 men on the shores. 



As a scavenger the Black Crow has distinct 

 uses, but these are rendered nugatory bv his 

 strongly marked predilections for robbery and 

 murder. So it is that his path is hedged about with 

 poison, gun and gin, the keeper rarely failing to 

 send a charge of shot through any nest he may 

 chance upon, and thus, persecuted at all seasons, 

 especially in the breeding time, the Crow, like the 

 brown rat, only averts extinction by the develop- 

 ment of the most extraordinary qualities of watch- 

 fulness and resource. 



Caw, caw, caw. How the "great brotherhood of 

 lofty elms " resounds with the incessant, impatient 

 cry of the Rooks ! From the first streak of dawn 



