THE CARRION CROW. 



93 



are left uncovered. Now, the carrion crow, sweeping 

 up and down in quest of food, takes advantage of 

 this forced absence of the bird from her uncovered 

 eggs, and pounces down upon them. He carries 

 them off, not in his bill, but on the point of it, having 

 thrust his upper mandible through the shell. Had 

 there been no officious prying on the part of the 

 keeper, it is very probable that the game would have 

 hatched its brood in safety, even in the immediate 

 vicinity of the carrion crow's nest ; for instinct never 

 fails to teach the sitting bird what to do. Thus, in 

 the wild state, when wearied nature calls for 

 relaxation, the pheasant first covers her eggs, and 

 then takes wing directly, without running from the 

 nest. I once witnessed this, and concluded that it 

 was a general thing. From my sitting-room, in the 

 attic story of the house, I saw a pheasant fly from 

 her nest in the grass ; and, on her return, she kept 

 on wing till she dropped down upon it. By this in- 

 stinctive precaution of rising immediately from the 

 nest on the bird's departure, and its dropping on it 

 at its return, there is neither scent produced, not 

 track made, in the immediate neighbourhood, by 

 which an enemy might have a clew to find it out, 

 and rob it of its treasure. These little wiles are the 

 very safety of the nest ; and I suspect that they are 

 put in practice by most birds which have their nest 

 on the ground. To these wiles, in part (before gangs 

 of forty or fifty nocturnal poachers desolated this 

 district), I attributed the great increase of my 

 pheasants, though they were surrounded by hawks, 



