Outlaws. 165 



Bad as is the character of the corvidce, there can be 

 little doubt that their services in destroying mice, 

 grubs, and beetles, for more than half the year at 

 least, far outweigh the harm they do. 



' Even the blackest of them all, the crow, 

 Renders good service as your man-at-arms, 

 Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail, 

 And crying havoc on the slug and snail.' 



But they have, one and all of them, a black mark 

 set down against their names in the memory of the 

 farmer. The magpie is shot for plundering the hen- 

 roost; the jay pays with his life the penalty of his 

 taste for peas ; the crow dies without mercy as the foe 

 of leverets and weakly lambs ; even the rook is 

 suspended in terrorem over the corn he laboured so 

 hard to save ; while the jackdaw, convicted of nothing 

 particular, gets his death as an aider and abettor of 

 his inky relations. 



