THE CROWS 



ploughed fields, now in the furze, and during the 

 severe frosts of last winter in the road itself, so 

 sharply driven by hunger as to rise very unwillingly 

 on the approach of passengers. A meadow opposite 

 the copse is one of their favourite resorts. There are 

 anthills, rushes, and other indications of not too rich 

 a soil in this meadow, and in places the prickly rest- 

 harrow grows among the grass, bearing its pink 

 flower in summer. Perhaps the coarse grass and 

 poor soil are productive of grubs and insects, for not 

 only the crows, but the rooks, continually visit it. 



One spring, hearing a loud chattering in the 

 copse, and recognising the alarm notes of the 

 missel-thrush, I cautiously crept up the hedge, and 

 presently found three crows up in a birch tree, 

 just above where the thrushes were calling. The 

 third crow probably a descendant of the other 

 two had joined in a raid upon the missel- 

 thrushes' brood. Both defenders and assailants 

 were in a high state of excitement ; the thrushes 

 screeching, and the crows, in a row one above the 

 other on a branch, moving up and down it in a 

 restless manner. I fear they had succeeded in 

 their purpose, for no trace of the young birds was 

 visible. 



The nest of the missel-thrush is so frequently 

 singled out for attack by crows that it would seem 

 the young birds must possess a peculiar and at- 



