CROWS AND ROOKS. 187 



frequent presence on these occasions, drawn to the field of 

 slaughter by an attractive banquet of unburied bodies of the 

 slain. Hence, poets have described it as possessing a mysterious 

 knowledge of these things : 



" Ill-omen'd bird ! as legends say, 



Thou hast the wondrous power to know, 



While health fills high the throbbing veins, 



The fated hour when blood must flow." 



The Icelanders, notwithstanding their endeavours to destroy 

 as many as they can, yet give them credit for the gift of 

 prophecy, and have a high opinion of them as soothsayers. 

 And the priests of the North American Indians wear, as a 

 distinguishing mark of their sacred profession, two or three 

 Raven-skins, fixed to the girdle behind their back, in such a 

 manner that the tails stick out horizontally from the body. 

 They have also a split Raven-skin on the head, so fastened as 

 to let the beak project from the forehead. 



That birds, if entirely unmolested, will become tame and 

 fearless, has been frequently noticed. During Captain Back's 

 Arctic expedition, two Ravens appeared as his earliest visitors, 

 announcing the approach of spring ; he would not suffer them 

 to be disturbed, and in a few days they consequently became 

 so familiar as scarcely to move ten paces when any one passed 

 them : they were the only living things, he adds, that held 

 communion with the party, and it was a pleasure to see them 

 gambol iD their glossy plumage on the white snow. 



CROWS AND ROOKS. 



People who live in towns, or pay little attention to these 

 matters, would no doubt consider the above-mentioned birds 

 as one and the same, alike as they are in size and colour, and 

 seen, as they usually are, spread over our fields, or uttering 

 their well-known cawings on the top of some hedge. They 

 are, however, as distinct in their characters and habits as a 

 hare and a rabbit. The real Crow commonly called the Car- 

 rion Crow, is the next link in the chain after the Raven, which 

 it resembles far more nearly than it does the Rook. The male 

 and his mate, for example, seldom associate with the rest, of 



