454 THE CARRION CROW. 



28th, 1878, during deep snow, ongoing through St Fort Woods 

 I got a full-grown rabbit with its skull broken above the right 

 ear, and the brains scooped out. The hole was half-an-inch in 

 diameter by an inch deep. The right eye was also scooped out, 

 but nothing more, as I came up before it had time. Of course 

 the rabbit was dead, as the ox is before being cut up for food. 

 On May 21st, 1887, a corby swooped down, picked up a leveret 

 the size of a rat, and flew off with it. Before our Links were 

 turned into a mere golf park, they came regularly from Tents- 

 muir between ten and twelve noon, and after two o'clock, hunt- 

 ing for larks. They flew like hawks above them, swooped 

 down, and seized them with their claws ; when near ripe the 

 young ones were often carried off. But though it preys on 

 young quadrupeds and birds' eggs, &c, its chief food is carrion. 

 Shakespeare makes Iden say when he killed Jack Cade — 



"Thy head I'll bear in triumph to the King, 

 Leaving thy trunk for crows to feed upon"— 



and Cloten says in " Cymbeline" — " If you fall in the adventure 

 our crows will fare the better for you, and there's an end." 

 Hence well named the carrion crow. Sixty years ago, when 

 dead horses were not so much utilised as now, they used to be 

 taken to the west sands, their skin and shoes taken off, leaving 

 their carcases scantily covered with sand ; I have seen a dozen 

 corbies and hoodies tearing at the entrails and flesh. When a 

 boy I used to bait hooks with bits of carrion, the line through 

 the carcase, and over the sand hill; but the crows were very 

 wary, not many being caught. This speaks of the past, and 

 shows the sanitary state of St Andrews at the time. In 

 December 1879 I was out on the sands, near Eden, looking for 

 shells after a severe sea storm, when amongst a lot of gulls and 

 other birds I saw a carrion crow flying with a large deep-sea 

 mussel, six inches long, fixed to one of its feet like a living 

 stamp. It flew about until caught, and was given to the skipper of 

 a sloop taking in sand ballast at the " Outhead" in Eden. He 

 kept it in the hold amongst the sand. I saw it ; its hurt toes 

 showed the power of the motor muscles of the shell fish. 

 When lying on the sands with half-open bivalves, the crow had 

 put its toes in to tear out the red foot of the mussel, when the 

 biter was bit. It was long a question whether crows carried off 

 eggs whole or stuck their beak through them. One was seen 

 flying off with a wild duck's egg, which it let fall amongst grass ; 

 it was picked up whole — proof positive. In 1888, when golf 



