INDEPENDENT BIRDS 21 



up the great cones for the seed they contain, with 

 as much ease as the siskin masters the catkin 

 of the alder. Nature in Britain has few more 

 interesting sights than that of a flock of cross- 

 bills engaged in this crackling, rending, tearing 

 work of harvesting coniferous seed. 



Few of the larger perching birds continue to 

 behave as if man had no place in the land. The 

 feeding habits of rooks, jackdaws, pigeons, and 

 most of the members of the thrush family have 

 come to relate themselves intimately to cultiva- 

 tion, and most of these birds make close approaches 

 when the kindly brown face of the earth is buried 

 in snow. The hooded crow, however, still acts 

 as his ancestors may be supposed to have acted 

 in tertiary times. He keeps to the ancient 

 traditions of the crows, and prefers man and aJl 

 his works at a distance. In the solemn raucous 

 speeches he addresses to his young he no doubt 

 tells them that man is a parvenu ; that the crows 

 were an old family in the land before he had 

 appeared to plague the face of it ; and that they 

 must just contrive to win through the winter as 

 their neolithic ancestors did, and maintain the 

 dignity of the race untarnished by the acceptance 

 of charity from the newcomer. Thus crows show 

 their independence by going to the seaside in 

 winter, and but for man it is possible that many 

 more birds would pass the hard season there. To 

 set against its wind-swept wintry bleakness the 

 shore has many advantages. It is never frozen 

 up, and every tide leaves something behind it, 

 dead or alive. A dead fish is perhaps not sump- 



