CARRION CROW 



owners. If only the Crow was as rare as the Raven, it would 

 be a good thing for our rarer breeding birds. 



I knew an instance where a pair of exceedingly rare birds 

 built their nest and laid a full clutch of eggs in it, and a few 

 keen bird protectors made the most remarkable and stringent 

 efforts to protect this rare nest, and in the ordinary course of 

 events it would have been next to impossible for any human 

 enemy to molest it ; but a prowling Crow, seeing the eggs, just 

 took them away, and these birds, which do not nest in these 

 islands more than once in a generation, left the haunt, and were 

 seen no more! 



Farmers and shepherds are constantly waging war on the 

 Crow, but as soon as a pair is killed another pair take their place, 

 for the districts where they are shot and trapped are constantly 

 being replenished by birds from those districts where there is no 

 game preserving customs. It is in the suburbs of our large 

 towns that the Carrion Crow thrives and multiplies. I know such 

 haunts, where Crows breed unmolested year after year, and one 

 pair, to my knowledge, for six or seven years past, have reared 

 annually n ot less than four young. This large army of robbers 

 let loose in Birdland, simply work havoc with the other birds. I 

 have known whole districts to be worked methodically by Carrion 

 Crows, and nearly every nest has been robbed of its eggs or 

 young. On the hills, Curlews' eggs seem to be very attractive 

 to these wanderers, and on one small range five nests were 

 destroyed, to my knowledge, in one season. While in the lowlands 

 the Missel Thrush is badly molested. But all kinds of small birds 

 are destroyed, and orchards, hedgerows, and meadows are most 

 methodically searched. 



But with all his faults the Crow has a kind heart, and it 

 would be hard to find a more dutiful and loving parent. If we 

 searched Birdland over, I do not think we could discover a species 



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