CROWS 37 



as that which is immanent in an Indian crow. 

 Even the most depraved magpie seems to be subject 

 to occasional intervals of comparative innocence, 

 during which his appetite for malignant mischief 

 slumbers, but this can hardly be said of the crow, 

 who, even when you think him fully occupied in 

 attending to his own affairs even when busily 

 feeding or in all the throng of nest-building seems 

 to have an eye open all the time for any opportunity 

 for wanton mischief, and whose keen sense ol 

 humour and restless energy seem hardly ever to 

 flag. During the stifling heat of a thunderous 

 afternoon he may for a time be reduced to sit, 

 gasping through gaping mandibles and incapable 

 of anything beyond sotto voce talk ; or, again, during 

 a storm of driving rain, sodden plumage, and 

 incapacity to struggle against the fury of the blast 

 may lead to temporary depression. But in all other 

 circumstances he is prepared to show himself in 

 his normal character as an irrepressible street gamin, 

 ready for any fray, opportunity for theft, or occasion 

 for annoying and tormenting his neighbours. As a 

 rule, he is quite ready to say, with Madame de 

 Longueville, when exiled from Paris and condemned 

 to stay with her husband in Normandy, " Je n'aime 

 pas les plaisirs innocents," but at rare intervals he 

 unbends so far as to partake of them, and I once 

 saw a party of crows playing a harmless game 

 among themselves for quite a long time. They 



