THE CROWS. 



57 



mellow throat and the clucking spur-fowl starts away among 

 the rustling leaves, or over the varied woodland playgrounds 

 cf the butterfly and bulbul, you meet no crow. The air is 

 too pure and the calmness too sweet. The crow is a fungus 

 of city life, a corollary to man and sin. It flourishes in the 

 atmosphere of great municipalities, and is not wanting in 

 the odorous precincts of the obscure village innocent of all 

 conservancy. 



Many of our frontier tribes have unpleasant traits of 

 character, and in some the catalogue of vices is long and 

 the redeeming virtues are few. But the crow differs from 

 them all in that it is utterly abandoned. I have never been 

 able to discover any shred of grace about a crow. And what 

 aggravates this state of things is the imposture of its out- 

 ward appearance. It affects to be respectable and entirely 

 ignores public opinion, dresses like a gentleman, carries 

 itself jauntily, and examines everything with one eye in a 

 way which will certainly bring on an eye-glass in time, if 

 there is a scrap of truth in the development theory. But 

 for this defiance of shame one might feel disposed to make 

 allowances for the unhappy influences of its life ; for, in 

 truth, it would be strange if a crow developed an amiable 

 character. Even a consistent career of crime must be less 



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