10 CORVID^E. 



Crows with sticks and feathers in their mouths are flying about 

 all day. 



"Dec. 5, 1878. Aroli. Found a nest with a Crow sitting in it; 

 no one to climb the tree." 



Mr. Benjamin Aitken has favoured me with the following in- 

 teresting note : " I send you an account of a nest of the Common 

 Crow, found in October, 1874, in the town of Madras. My 

 attention was first directed to the remarkable pair of Crows to 

 which the nest belonged, in the end of July, when they were 

 determinedly and industriously attempting to fix a nest on the top 

 ledge of a pillar in the verandah of the ' Madras Mail ' office. The 

 ledge was so narrow that one would have thought the Sparrow 

 alone of all known birds would have selected it for a site ; and 

 even the Sparrow only under the condition of a writing or toilet- 

 table being underneath to catch the lime, sticks, straws, rags, 

 feathers, and other innumerable materials that commonly strew 

 the ground below a Sparrow's nest. I was told that the Crows 

 had been at their task for two months before I saw them, and I 

 then watched them till nearly the end of October. The celebrated 

 spider that taught King Bruce a lesson in patience was eager and 

 fitful compared with this pair of Crows. I kept no account of the 

 number of times their structure was blown down, only to be 

 immediately begun again ; but as there was a good deal of rain and 

 wind at that season, in addition to the regular sea-breeze, it was a 

 common thing for the sticks to be cleared off day after day. Eut 

 perseverance will often achieve seeming impossibilities, and, more- 

 over, the Crows worked more indefatigably as the season went on, 

 and used to run up their nest with great rapidity (no doubt, also, 

 they improved by their practice) ; so that several times the struc- 

 ture was completed, or nearly completed, before being swept to the 

 ground, though how it remained in its place for a moment seems a 

 mystery; and twice I saw a broken egg among the scattered 

 debris. At length, about the middle of September, the Crows de- 

 termined to try the pillar at the other end of the verandah. By 

 this time, of course, all the Crows in Madras had long brought up 

 their broods and sent them adrift ; and what they thought to see 

 an eccentric pair of their own species forsaking society, and 'building 

 in September, may be imagined. The new site selected differed in 

 no respect from, the old one, and was no less exposed to the wind ; 

 but the birds had grown expert at building ' castles in the air,' and 

 now met with fewer mishaps. In the first week of October the 

 hen bird was sitting regularly, so on the 8th of the month I sent 

 a man up by a ladder, and he held up four eggs for me to look at. 

 It fairly seemed after this that patience was to have its reward, 

 but on the night of the 20th there came a storm of wind and rain, 

 and when I went to the office in the morning, the nest was lying 

 on the ground, with two young Crows in it, with the feathers just 

 beginning to appear. The other two, I suppose, had fallen over 

 into the street. And thus ended one of the most persevering 

 attempts on record to overcome a difficulty insurmountable from 



