120 THE CROWS. 



ground before rain. But that is as boys gather black- 

 berries, or trespass in a field and eat raw turnips. 

 Crows will not look to nature for a living. A " wild " 

 Crow, living in a forest or field and foraging for itself, 

 is a thing I have not seen. 



Of course I am referring to the common, or " grey- 

 necked," Crow. The black Crow, which Jerdon calls 

 the Indian Corby, is different. Though it often 

 haunts our back premises in company with the others 

 and snatches a share of anything that may be going, 

 it is still a wild bird, and you will often find it at home 

 in the jungles, far from all human habitations. It is 

 very abundant on shady country roads, feeding on 

 the fruit of the banian tree or the peepul, and when 

 the traveller sits down in a cool place and lights a fire 

 to cook his mid-day meal, the black Crows see the 

 smoke from afar and come to wait upon him. They 

 kill lizards and spit frogs on their black beaks, and I 

 am afraid that eggs and young birds form no small 

 part of their diet. Compared with the grey-necked 

 Crow, the black species is not common in Bombay, but 

 it gets commoner as you go south and in some places 

 quite replaces the other. It is known to science as Cor- 

 vtts macrorhynchus. Macrorhynchus is a formidable- 

 looking word, but only means Big Beak. The common 

 grey-necked Crow has got the name of Corvus splen- 

 dens ; whether from the glossy blackness of its wings, 

 or the splendour of its impudence, I will not pretend 

 to say. It was once more aptly named Corpus impu- 

 dicus, and one could wish that name had remained. 



Crows are fond of sleeping together. Near almost 

 every village there is a large tree which is the dormi- 

 tory, and to this they gather from long distances as 



