10 RAMBLES OF 



entire security during their breeding season, are espe- 

 cially infested by these troublesome creatures, so that at 

 some times of the year they are collected in numbers 

 which would appear incredible to any one unaccustomed 

 to witness their accumulations. 



Individually, the common crow (corvus corona} may 

 be compared in character with the brown or Norway rat, 

 being, like that quadruped, addicted to all sorts of mis- 

 chief, destroying the lives of any small creatures that 

 may fall in its way, plundering with audacity wherever 

 any thing is exposed to its rapaciousness, and triumphing 

 by its cunning over the usual artifices employed for the 

 destruction of ordinary noxious animals. Where food is 

 at any time scarce, or the opportunity for such marauding 

 inviting, there is scarcely a young animal about the farm 

 yards safe from the attacks of the crow. Young chickens, 

 ducks, goslings, and even little pigs, when quite young 

 and feeble, are carried off by them. They are not less 

 eager to discover the nests of domestic fowls, and will sit 

 very quietly in sight, at a convenient distance, until the 

 hen leaves the nest, and then fly down and suck her 

 eggs at leisure. But none of their tricks excited in me 

 a greater interest, than the observation of their attempts 

 to rob a hen of her chicks. The crow, alighting at a little 

 distance from the hen, would advance in an apparently 

 careless way towards the brood, when the vigilant parent 

 would bristle up her feathers, and rush at the black rogue 

 to drive him off. After several such approaches, the hen 



