332 The Folk-Lore of Natural History. [Sess. 
With the ancients much superstition prevailed in regard to the 
crow family generally, and Shakespeare specially mentions 
three of these as birds of omen— 
“ Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak, 
Augurs that understood relations have 
By magot pies, and choughs, and rooks brought forth 
The secret’st man of blood.” 
—“ Macbeth,” Act ITI. se. iv. 
Even at the present day there are still to be found some who 
profess to augur good or evil from the flight of the magpie or 
the numbers seen together :— 
“ One for sorrow, two for mirth, 
Three for a wedding, four for a birth.” 
But in my own district we had it— 
“ Yin’s joy, twa’s grief, 
Three’s a marriage, four’s a death, 
Five is heaven, six is hell, 
Seven’s the devil’s ain sel’.” 
The following lines from Tannahill will be familiar :— 
“ The craw that biggit in the stackyard thorn, 
Scraight and forsook its nest when she was born ; 
Three pyets crossed the kirk when she was christened ; 
I’ve heard it tauld, and trembled when I listened.” 
THE Rook. 
As far back as the year 1424 we find an Act passed by the 
Scots Parliament for the purpose of lessening the number of 
rooks. When children see crows hastening away in a body 
they say the schule is skailing; and if they are noticed sitting 
thickly on trees in the winter time, it is called “a craw’s 
preachin’.” When they are seen whirling and hovering round 
one spot in numbers, old people say it is a craw’s weddin’. 
If they are observed flying high in the air in a flock, and 
tumbling and diving down, it is considered a sign of wind and 
rain. An old Scottish saying is, “ Ay, but ye’re a bonnie pair, 
as the craw said to his ain twa feet.” In Shakespeare we find 
the quotation— 
“We'll pluck a crow together.” 
—“ Comedy of Errors,” Act ITI. se. i. 
—the meaning of which is perhaps not quite so clear as our 
