278 The Field N aturalisf s Quarterly Nov. 



regularity and familiarity with which three or four now 

 annually visit my poultry-yard each morning at feeding- 

 time, I think the same individuals return year by year to 

 the same winter quarters as surely as the same Swallows 

 and House-Martins revert to the same nests. 



Having wandered in my chronology, let me relate an 

 autumnal instance of the bold depredations of Grey Crow. 

 In the last week of October 1884 "ly father and a friend 

 were shooting a 14-acre marsh at Somerton. Ere com- 

 mencing to do so the previously slaughtered game were 

 deposited at the gateway ; when they had finished beating 

 the marsh, it was found that some Crows had completely 

 spoiled a Hare and three Rabbits. A small piece of news- 

 paper laid over the bag, or a spread-out handkerchief, would 

 have been a sufficient protection, but this precaution had 

 not been taken to scare away the suspicious though crafty 

 Kentishmen. The sobriquet of *' Danish " is intelligible, but 

 why Corvus comix should be hailed as a native of the hop 

 county I have not been able to discover. They are certainly 

 no more abundant at an\- season of the year in the proverbial 

 garden of England than they are in the now far-famed Broad- 

 land district. 



Some Birds in Sliakspear. 



By J. L. Bevir, M.A. 



The C0RVID.E. 



Before actually turning to Shakspear I cannot refrain 

 from saying a word or two with regard to the Latin and 

 Greek names, their translation into English, and their use 

 as terms in ornithology. There are two pairs of words — 

 Kopa^, corvus, and Kopdovq, comix : the former is translated 

 in lexicons and dictionaries as raven, the latter as crow. 

 Now I admit that upon a good many occasions the ancients 

 used the words loosely, just as one finds the French do not 

 distinguish between corneillc and corbeau ; but in such cases 

 as there is a distinction, I believe that comix refers to the 



