86 THE CARRION CROW. 
THE HABITS OF THE CARRION CROW. 
* Inter aves albas, vetuit consistere corvum.’’ Ovid. Met. 
The crow was order’d not to hold a place 
*Mid whiter favourites of the feather’d race. 
Tuts warrior bird is always held up to public exe- 
cration. The very word carrion, attached to his 
name, carries something disgusting with it; and 
no one ever shows him any kindness. Though he 
certainly has his vices, still he has his virtues too ; 
and it would be a pity if the general odium in which 
he is held should be the means, one day or other, 
of blotting out his name from the page of our British 
ornithology. With great propriety he might be 
styled the lesser raven in our catalogue of native 
birds ; for, to all appearance, he is a raven; and I 
should wish to see his name changed, were I not 
devoutly attached to the nomenclature established 
by the wisdom of our ancestors, 
The carrion crow is a very early riser; and, long 
before the rook is on the wing, your hear this bird 
announcing the approach of morn, with his loud 
hollow croaking, from the oak to which he had re- 
sorted the night before. He retires to rest later 
than the rook : indeed, as far as I have been able to 
observe his motions, I consider him the first bird on 
wing in the morning, and the last at night, of all 
our non-migrating diurnal British birds. 
When the genial voice of spring calls upon him 
to prepare for the continuation of his species, the 
carrion crow, which, up to this period, has been 
