104 RAMBLES OF 



would appear incredible to any one unaccustomed to 

 witness their accumulations. 



Individually, the common crow (corvus corona) 

 may be compared in character with the brown or 

 Norway rat, being, like that quadruped, addicted to 

 all sorts of mischief, destroying the lives of any small 

 creatures that may fall in its way, plundering with 

 audacity wherever anything is exposed to its rapa- 

 ciousness, and triumphing by its cunning over the 

 usual artifices employed for the destruction of ordi- 

 nary noxious animals. Where food is at any time 

 scarce, or the opportunity for such marauding invi- 

 ting, there is scarcely a young animal about the 

 farm-yards safe from the attacks of the crow. Young- 

 chickens, ducks, goslings, and even little pigs, when 

 quite young and feeble, are carried off by them. 

 They are not less eager to discover the nests of do- 

 mestic fowls ; and will sit very quietly in sight, at a 

 convenient distance, until the hen leaves the nest, 

 and then fly down and suck her eggs at leisure. But 

 none of their tricks excited in me a greater interest, 

 than the observation of their attempts to rob a hen 

 of her chicks. The crow, alighting at a little dis- 

 tance from the hen, would advance in an apparently 

 careless way towards the brood, when the vigilant 

 parent would bristle up her feathers, and rush at the 

 black rogue to drive him off. After several such 

 approaches, the hen would become very angry, and 

 would chase the crow to a greater distance from the 

 brood. This is the very object the robber has in 

 view, for, as long as the parent keeps near her young, 



