104 BIRDS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE 



very tolerant terms with the rest of the feathered. 

 But this " O sweet content " has not made him in 

 the least gross and aldermanic. What it has done is 

 to divert the energies he expends in the country to keep 

 a hold on life into channels of enjoyment. Gravely 

 stalking the fields, he will suddenly explode into hoarse 

 thanksgivings, craning out his neck, ruffling his plumage 

 and roaring away for minutes at a stretch. Or he 

 will balance himself on the tops of the cabbages and 

 duck and flirt his tail to keep himself on. He makes 

 shameless love to his wife half the year round, and 

 with as much youthful gusto in the summer as the 

 spring, before his offspring or out of their sight. 

 Sometimes, out of sheer abandon of spirits, he makes 

 passes at the gulls, snapping his mandibles at their 

 necks when they are feeding on the ground, and 

 desisting to soar and gambol in the air in madcap 

 frolics with his family. These crows of ours will chase 

 one another in flight like clumsy swallows, and, though 

 they cannot dash down wind in the giddy way small 

 birds do, there is nothing they enjoy more than 

 setting their vans to the wind and down slanting to 

 earth with a rush. Both parents and young have 

 quite laid aside their hatred of the human form, and, 

 as though they enjoyed giving Darwin the lie, allow 

 me to approach within ten yards or even less without 

 turning a feather. Even when I walk right in upon 

 them, they are in no way disconcerted, flopping 

 leisurely off a few inches from the ground, to come 

 to earth again some yards further on. Elsewhere the 

 crow is all at odds with the world ; here he is on the 

 best terms with it. 



An incident I witnessed in October gave me the 

 crow's measure better than any other in my experience. 

 Four of them were ambling about some fifty paces 

 from me, and what seemed to be the tail of another 

 came out from behind a tussock. It proved to be 

 an all-over black cat, and the black cat was in a 

 great taking over the black crows. It would stalk one 

 of them and then make a flying leap for him. What 

 did the crow do ? He gazed contemptuously at the 



