THE JACKDAW AND CARRION CROW, 211 



Crow on the bleak and rocky coast, subsisting upon the 

 garbage thrown up by the restless deep ; we hear his 

 hoarse croak in the upland districts, even on the grouse 

 moors and sheep-walks ; but the home he loves best is 

 in the well-wooded districts — the districts which abound 

 most with his food. Here we ofttimes see him on the 

 pastures with the rooks, but he seldom or never asso- 

 ciates with them, or even with his own kindred, for more 

 than a pair are rarely seen together. 



If the reader would wish to examine the cradle of 

 this bold and wary bird, he must seek it far in the 

 deepest shades, although he will sometimes rear his 

 young a stone's throw from your door ; but this is only 

 where he lives unmolested. In the wooded solitudes, 

 therefore, when the month of May is making all things 

 pleasant around us, the Carrion Crow is engaged in 

 bringing up his young. You see his nest in the top- 

 most branches of the oak, sometimes amongst the 

 tangled foliage of the fir, or far up in the swaying 

 branches of a lofty elm. It matters little on which tree 

 it is placed, but wherever we find it it is always well 

 made. The outside is made of sticks, cemented with 

 mud and clay, and lined in the first place with the same 

 material ; then wool, torn from the backs of the sheep 

 in the neighbouring pastures, moss from the ground 

 beneath, and feathers from the distant poultry yard, all 

 firmly and evenly placed, and forming a bed as smooth 

 as the rooty bottom of the Magpie's nest. On this the 

 eggs lie bare and uncovered, four, or more rarely five 

 in number, and often only three. They are subject to 

 much variation both in size and colour, and closely 

 resemble those of the Rook, only they are as a rule 

 rather larger. The Carrion Crow is a wary bird, and 

 quits her nest, if it only contain eggs, the moment your 



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