88 THE CARIUON CROW. 



positive which can invalidate this assertion. Verily 

 when the Professor climbs up to crows' nests this en- 

 suing spring, he will agree with Ovid, that ' Causa 

 patrocinio, non bona, pejor erit." 



The carrion crow never covers its eggs on leaving 

 the nest; they are generally from three to five, and 

 sometimes even six, in number; wonderfully irregular 

 in size and shape and colour. This irregularity is so 

 very apparent, that on examining the nests of some 

 carrion crows with eggs in them, you might fancy 

 to yourself that the rook had been there, to add 

 one of hers to those already laid by the original 

 owner. 



This bird never builds its nest in hedges, but will 

 construct it in any of our forest trees ; and, with 

 me, it seems to give the preference, in general, to 

 the oak, the spruce fir, and the Scotch pine. The 

 young are hatched naked and blind, and remain 

 blind for some days. 



Our ancestors, no doubt, bestowed the epithet 

 " carrion " upon this bird, in order to make a clear 

 and decided distinction between it (whose flesh, they 

 probably supposed, was rank and bad) and the rook, 

 the flesh of which was well known to be good and 

 wholesome food. Perhaps, too, in those days of 

 plenty, and of less trade, the carrion crow had more 

 opportunities of tasting flesh than it has in these our 

 enviable times of divers kinds of improvement. 

 Were a carrion crow of the present day to depend 

 upon the finding of a dead cow or horse for its dinner, 

 would soon become an adept in the art of fasting by 

 actual experiment ; for, no sooner is one of these 

 animals, in our neighbourhood, struck by the hand 



