454 Practical Game Preserving. 



the future, is but in small degree incapacitated from con- 

 tinuing its depredations. To enumerate all the spots 

 suitably circumstanced for trapping crows would be an 

 unprofitable task, as the whole extent of any preserve may 

 furnish, every few yards, the best of likely places, and 

 although one could set with advantage at every spot which 

 appeared, we should not recommend such indiscriminate 

 mode of going to work. Catching crows in fields, or rather 

 attempting such a thing, would probably result in the 

 capture of other birds, such as wood-pigeons, rooks, or 

 magpies ; hence a description of the way of going to work 

 for the discomfiture of one sort holds good to some extent 

 for the others. 



At seed time crows are addicted to visiting freshly sown 

 corn fields and so, indeed, are rooks and " blowing them- 

 selves out " with the swelling grain. In order to put a 

 stop to this, some few should be caught and made examples 

 of. It will be observed that crows and rooks, when bent 

 on devouring corn, always resort to one spot towards the 

 centre of the field ; that is, they pitch at this spot and, as 

 they feed, move away from it to others. This is the rule, 

 although occasionally, when the birds are continually dis- 

 turbed but not harassed, they do not closely observe it, 

 and, if one take trouble to notice, the particular situation 

 for alighting will be easy of recognition when one goes into 

 the field in search of it. On near approach, even if the 

 corn be but lately sown, the extent of the damage will 

 be apparent enough, but after the grain has sprouted and 

 is an inch or two high, it will be much more striking. In 

 order, then, to be even with the crows, a goodly number 



