452 THE CARRION CROW. 



four young ones also on one of the big trees, and a sparrow- 

 hawk's with five fresh eggs low on a birch tree. But although 

 the falcon and the crow had their nests on the same tree, it did 

 not alter their natures, for on leaving the wood I saw a kestrel 

 soaring and wheeling over the moor chased by a carrion crow. 

 I watched them closely. The falcon took it easy, outsoaring 

 the crow when it chose, as if it knew its power of wing, coolly 

 keeping out of harm's way — as if loth to quarrel with its tree- 

 mate. On my way home through the heather I saw the same 

 crow driven away by the screaming plovers, which detected it 

 gliding suspiciously low over the moor, scanning it for eggs or 

 young — especially the bare places where the lapwings breed — 

 the curlews also screaming still louder in chorus, instinctively 

 fearing the dreaded enemy of their young ; but I noticed that 

 on every occasion the crow paid deference to the lapwings by 

 darting aside and avoiding their attack. I have observed that 

 sparrow-hawks and kestrels always shun the attack of carrion 

 crows, as the crow shuns the lapwing when intruding on their 

 breeding-place. And, to show that small birds have not a 

 constant dread of birds of prey, when I was up the tree 

 inspecting the carrion crow's and the kestrel's nests, I saw a 

 robin treading his hen on the next tree, thus paying deference 

 to Nature, and paving the way for a nest and eggs themselves. 

 Next year, on April 19th, 1856, I got a carrion's with five fresh 

 eggs in the same wood, which I also inspected. It was composed 

 of sticks, heather twigs, grass, with the roots and clods attached ; 

 then dry grass and slender birch twigs, all bound together with 

 damp clayey soil, lined inside with rabbits' fur, hair, and wool, 

 with one feather. Two days before I got one in a strip of wood 

 at Kinaldy with only three half-sitten eggs, showing the number 

 varies. The crows misled me. I had to climb up to a dozen 

 old nests before I got the real one. They kept out of sight 

 until I climbed a tree ; they then hovered and croaked above 

 my head as if the nest was their's ; thus they did to all I 

 climbed until I gave it up. Yet I was convinced they had 

 their nest in the strip ; but leaving the wood at the very opposite 

 side, I sj)ied it on the top of a Scotch fir, almost hidden by the 

 prickly leaves — when I climbed up, strange there was no 

 hovering nor croaking then. I just mention this to show there 

 is no hard-and-fast rule with birds ; and to show this more — 

 being over on Tentsmuir at my favourite pursuit on May 

 29th, 1857, the shepherd showed me a carrion crow's nest on a 

 low|willow bush, the stem only four inches diameter, growing in 



