88 THE CARRION CROW. 



positive which can invalidate this assertion. Verily 

 when the professor climbs up to crows' nests this 

 ensuing spring, he will agree with Ovid, that "Causa 

 patrocinio, non bona, pejor erit." 



The carrion crow never covers its eggs on leaving 

 the nest : they are generally from three to five, and 

 sometimes even six, in number ; wonderfully irre- 

 gular in size and shape and colour. This irregularity 

 is so very apparent, that on examining the nests of 

 some carrion crows with eggs in them, you might 

 fancy to yourself that the rook had been there, to 

 add one of hers to those already laid by the ori- 

 ginal owner. 



This bird never builds its nest in hedges, but will 

 construct it in any of our forest trees ; and, with 

 me, it seems to give the preference, in general, to 

 the oak, the spruce fir, and the Scotch pine. The 

 young are hatched naked and blind, and remain 

 blind for some days. 



Our ancestors, no doubt, bestowed the epithet 

 " carrion" upon this bird, in order to make a clear 

 and decided distinction between it (whose flesh, they 

 probably supposed, was rank and bad) and the rook, 

 the flesh of which was well known to be good and 

 wholesome food. Perhaps, too, in those days of 

 plenty, and of less trade, the carrion crow had more 

 opportunities of tasting flesh than it has in these 

 our enviable times of divers kinds of improvement. 

 Were a carrion crow of the present day to depend 

 upon the finding of a dead cow or horse for its dinner, 

 it would soon become an adept in the art of fasting 

 by actual experiment ; for, no sooner is one of these 

 animals, in our neighbourhood, struck by the hand 



