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from, for they know the season of nesting for each 

 species of bird and they raid every nest they discover. 

 If they are so fortunate as to find young ones therein 

 they promptly devour these. The crows recently ate 

 up three young bulbuls which had been hatched out 

 in a nest in the rhik-honse in my compound. If the 

 young birds have not yet arrived the black villains eat 

 up the eggs. They regard this as an act of virtue since 

 they save the hen bird the trouble of uselessly sitting 

 on her eggs. Crows are always on the look out for 

 eggs. I have seen one snatch up a pingpong ball 

 that had fallen on the grass and then spend an 

 unprofitable half hour in vain attempts to extract 

 the yolk. 



Crows are veiy fond of fruit ; they are always 

 among the first birds to attack a ripening mulberry or 

 cherry tree. Nor is this the only depredation they 

 commit in the garden. They will, out of sheer cussed- 

 ness, uproot plants and pluck flowers. It is needless 

 to say that they scrape up and eat newly-sown seeds. 

 Crows will also steal things which are not ordinarily 

 accounted nutritious. They are especially addicted 

 to flying off with the slips of paper which the en- 

 thusiastic gardener places in cleft sticks pushed into 



