FEBRUARY 39 



But inasmuch as there was no eye-witness to this deed 

 of guilt, and whereas there are five hundred pairs of 

 rooks in these woods to every pair of jays, and seeing 

 what incorrigible egg-stealers rooks become at times, it 

 is reasonable to set down the crime to the score of the 

 ugly birds rather than of the pretty ones. 



There are no more remorseless revolutionists than 

 men of science. Which of us has not grown up in the 

 pious belief that the type of monarchy among birds 

 was supplied by the eagle? Few people paid much 

 attention to MacGillivray when, sixty years ago, he 

 announced that the crows (Corvidce) must be accounted 

 among the most highly organised birds ; l nor (though 

 in the interval the light of evolution had been thrown 

 on the tangled maze of systematic classification) was 

 much importance attached to the late Professor Parker's 

 indorsement of MacGillivray's view, pronounced forty 

 years later : 



'In all respects, physiological, morphological, and orni- 

 thological, the crow may be placed at the head, not only of 

 its own great series (birds of the Crow form), but also as the 

 unchallenged chief of the whole of the Carinatce.' 2 



Nevertheless, here comes the very latest authority 

 of all, Professor Alfred Newton, the collaborates 

 in classification of Herr Gadow, and sums up thus 

 in the introduction to his admirable Dictionary of 

 Birds : 3 



1 British Birds, i. p. 485. 



2 Zoological Societies Transactions, ix. p. 300. 



3 London : A. and C. Black, 1896. 



