CROWS 39 



of the company seems to make a remark or tell a 

 story that shocks even their depraved sense of 

 propriety, and a general dispersion takes place 

 amid loud cries of reprobation; but the desire for 

 further scandal soon brings them all back, and it 

 is only after several such interruptions that they 

 finally separate for the night. Every evening 

 throngs of crows, mynas, and common pond-herons, 

 Ardeola grayi, come trooping in from their 

 hunting-grounds in the surrounding country, and 

 converge towards their roosts in the trees of the 

 gardens and streets of the European quarter of 

 Calcutta. The mynas usually fly in small flocks 

 or family parties, the crows either solitarily or in 

 packs, and the herons always singly. The mynas 

 make straight for their roosts ; the crows interrupt 

 their journey in order to bathe, and on reaching 

 home, waste much time in idle talk before going 

 to bed; and the herons often vary their homeward 

 flight by swooping aside after passing insects. 



Crows never show the tranquil enjoyment of 

 cool evening breezes that kites do, but are always 

 fully occupied in bathing, gossiping, or playing 

 until the last moment before retiring to rest. 

 Even during the coldest weather they persist in 

 having a bath either on their homeward journey or 

 after they have arrived at their night-quarters, 

 going down to the ponds and splashing and 

 fluttering most energetically in the shallows. When 



