THE CROWS 95 



the ploughs began to move. But a couple of crows 

 looked over the refuse once during the day for months 

 till men came to sift the cinders. These crows are per- 

 manent residents. Their rendezvous is a copse, only 

 separate from the furze by the highway. 



They are always somewhere near, now in the ploughed 

 fields, now in the furze, and during the severe frost of 

 last winter in the road itself, so sharply driven by hunger 

 as to rise very unwillingly on the approach of passengers. 

 A meadow opposite the copse is one of their favourite 

 resorts. There are anthills, rushes, and other indications 

 of not too rich a soil in this meadow, and in places the 

 prickly restharrow grows among the grass, bearing its 

 pink flower in summer. Perhaps the coarse grass and 

 poor soil are productive of grubs and insects, for not 

 only the crows, but the rooks, continually visit it. 



One spring, hearing a loud chattering in the copse, 

 and recognising the alarm notes of the missel-thrush, I 

 cautiously crept up the hedge, and presently found three 

 crows up in a birch tree, just above where the thrushes 

 were calling. The third crow probably a descendant 

 of the other two had joined in a raid upon the missel- 

 thrushes' brood. Both defenders and assailants were in 

 a high state of excitement ; the thrushes screeching, and 

 the crows in a row one above the other on a branch, 

 moving up and down it in a restless manner. I fear 

 they had succeeded in their purpose, for no trace of the 

 young birds was visible. 



The nest of the missel-thrush is so frequently singled 

 out for attack by crows that it would seem the young 

 birds must possess a peculiar and attractive flavour ; or 

 is it because they are large? There are more crows 

 round London than in a whole county, where the 

 absence of manufactures and the rural quiet would 



