288 THE WINTER BIRDS. 



THE CROW. 



The common Crow is the representative in America of 

 the European Kook, resembling it in many of its habits. 

 In Europe, where land is more valuable than in this 

 country, and where agriculture is carried on with an 

 amount of skill that would astonish an American, the 

 people are not so jealous of the birds. In Great Britain, 

 rookeries are permanent establishments ; and the Hooks, 

 notwithstanding the mischief they do, are protected on 

 account of their services to agriculture. The farmers of 

 Europe, having learned by experience that without the 

 aid of mischievous birds their crops would be sacrificed 

 to the more destructive insect race, forgive them their 

 trespasses as we forgive the trespasses of cats and dogs, 

 who in the aggregate are vastly more destructive than 

 birds. The respect shown to birds by any people seems 

 to bear a certain ratio to the antiquity of the nation. 

 Hence the sacredness with which they are regarded in 

 Japan, where the population is so dense that the inhab- 

 itants would not consent to divide the products of their 

 fields with the feathered race unless their usefulness 

 had been demonstrated. 



The Crow is one of the most unfortunate of birds in 

 all his relations to man ; for by the public he is regarded 

 with hatred, and every man's hand is against him. He 

 is protected neither by custom nor by superstition ; the 

 sentimentalist cares nothing for him as a subject of ro- 

 mance, and the utilitarian is blind to his services as a 

 scavenger. The farmer considers him as the very ring- 

 leader of mischief, and uses all the means he can invent 

 for his destruction ; the friend of the singing-birds 

 bears him a grudge as the destroyer of their eggs and 

 their young; and even the moralist is disposed to con- 

 demn him for his cunning and dissimulation. 



