198 BOMBAY DUCKS 



Here, again, the owl cannot be called an enemy of 

 the crow. It is true that there is one species which is 

 said to wring young crows' necks in the dead of night ; 

 but this owl did not belong to that species. The crows 

 merely set upon the owl because it was a strange crea- 

 ture, and they regard all strange creatures as enemies, 

 and mobbing is the treatment meted out by crows to 

 their foes. Allied to this hostility to all strange-looking 

 creatures is one of the most curious phenomena in 

 nature — the brutal way in which a wounded animal is 

 treated by its fellows. Instead of caring for it and 

 tending it, they set upon it and kill it, being, apparently, 

 quite indifferent to its cries. 



The other day, while driving along the main street of 

 Madras, I saw a crow whose legs had been tied to its 

 tail. It looked a most ludicrous object as it ran along, 

 and fully twenty crows were accompanying it, regarding 

 it with hostile eyes. They probably eventually pecked 

 it to death. I am told that there used to be a Madras 

 Civil Servant who hated crows with a great hatred. 

 It was his wont to catch these birds, shave off their 

 feathers, and paint the bare skin red or blue. The 

 birds thus disfigured were, on liberation, immediately 

 set upon by their fellows and killed. " This habit," 

 writes Lockwood Kipling, is " reported to have sug- 

 gested a stratagem by which omnivorous gipsy folk 

 catch crows. A live crow is spread-eagled on his back, 

 with forked pegs holding down his pinions. He flutters 

 and cries, and the other crows come to investigate his 

 case and presently attack him. With claws and beak 

 he seizes an assailant and holds him fast. The gipsy 



