flutter round, distracted but helpless. For this I 

 shoot the crow without remorse." 



Lockwood Kipling dwells upon another aspect of 

 the crow's character. According to him, these birds 

 are " thieves, outcast scavengers, deceitful, and, above 

 all other creatures that hoard and hide, clever in 

 concealing things/' 



Jerdon, too, is very severe on the bird. He would 

 take away its fine name, exchange it for some term 

 of opprobrium, for he thinks that to describe the 

 Indian crow as Corvus splendens " tends to bring into 

 ridicule, among the unscientific, the system of nomen- 

 clature." Hodgson went one better. He actually 

 did call the bird Gorvus impudicus, but he could not 

 induce other ornithologists to follow him, so the 

 grey-necked crow still remains Gorvus splendens. 



Colonel Cunningham stigmatises the crow as " an 

 irrepressible street gamin, ready for any fray, oppor- 

 tunity for theft, or occasion for annoying and 

 tormenting his neighbours. As a rule, he is quite 

 ready to say, with Madame de Longueville when 

 exiled from Paris and condemned to stay with her 

 husband in Normandy, ' Je n'aime pas les plaisirs 

 innocents.' " 



