THE CARRION CROW. 29$ 



and the weasel, to the direful cost of the sitting birds ; and, more- 

 over, that by his own obtrusive and unexpected presence in a place 

 Thich ought to be free from every kind of inspection, whether of 

 jnan or beast, he has driven the bird precipitately from her nest, by 

 which means the eggs are left uncovered. Now, the carrion crow, 

 sweeping up and down in quest of food, takes advantage of this 

 forced absence of the bird from her uncovered eggs, and pounces 

 down upon them. He carries them off, not in his bill but on the 

 point of it, having thrust his upper mandible through the shell. Had 

 there been no officious prying on the part of the keeper, it is very 

 probable that the game would have hatched its brood in safety, even 

 in the immediate vicinity of the carrion crow's nest ; for instinct 

 never fails to teach the sitting bird what to do. Thus, in the wild 

 state, when wearied nature calls for relaxation, the pheasant first 

 covers her eggs, and then takes wing directly, without running from 

 the nest. I once witnessed this, and concluded that it was a general 

 thing. From my sitting-room, in the attic storey of the house, I saw 

 a pheasant fly from her nest in the grass, and, on her return, she kept 

 on wing till she dropped down upon it. By this instinctive precau- 

 tion of rising immediately from the nest on the bird's departure, and 

 its dropping on it at its return, there is neither scent produced nor 

 track made in the immediate neighbourhood, by which an enemy 

 might have a clue to find it out and rob it of its treasure. These 

 little wiles are the very safety of the nest, and I suspect that they 

 are put in practice by most birds which have their nest on the ground. 

 To these wiles, in part (before gangs of forty or fifty nocturnal 

 poachers desolated this district), I attributed the great increase of 

 my pheasants, though they were surrounded by hawks, jays, crows, 

 and magpies, which had all large families to maintain and bring up 

 in the immediate neighbourhood. 



Keepers may boast of their prowess in setting traps (and, in testi- 

 mony of their success, they may nail up the mutilated bodies of carrion 

 crows against the kennel wall) ; but I am of opinion that, if the 

 squire could ever get to know the real number of pheasants and 

 hares which have been killed or mutilated in those traps, he would 

 soon perceive that he had been duped by the gamekeeper; and that 

 henceforth he would forbid him to enter the covers in the breeding 



