THE CROWS. 9 
Their young are always hatched blind, helpless, and 
naked or nearly so; their nests are usally in a bush or 
tree, and they live in pairs in the breeding season. They 
are the most skilful nest-builders of all birds, and the 
only ones which are commonly accounted songsters. 
They bear captivity well, but are not so easy to breed in 
that state as some groups of birds. 
The order is divided into many families, which are not 
always easy to distinguish, as there are many connecting 
links. 
THE CROWS. 
Birds of the Crow family are usually of a fair size ; they 
have stout bills, garnished with bristly feathers at the 
root, as may be easily seen in our old frend, the House- 
Crow. Mail and female are alike, and the voung only 
differ in being duller. 
That grey-headed scoundrel, the House-Crow (Corvus 
splendens), and the ‘‘ big black bounding beggar,’ his 
jungle relative (Corvus macrorhynchus) need mention 
only to be condemned. They will insist on one’s 
studying their habits, on account of their appalling pro- 
pensity for mischief ; and for this reason, and because of 
the fact that they are deadly enemies to the eggs and 
young of all birds weaker than themselves, they should 
be banished by all possible means from every bird- 
lover’s garden. 
The Magpies, however, are of a better jat. They have 
shorter wings, though longer tails, than Crows and are 
smaller in size; so, with the best will in the world to 
