66 CORVID.E. 



But more severe, and yet more beautiful, is Marlowe, in 

 the " Jew of Malta :" 



"The sad presaging raven tolls 

 The sick man's passport in her hollow beak ; 

 And in the shadow of the silent night 

 Doth shake contagion from her sable wing !" 



After so much censure, we must return to the days of Ap- 

 pius Vindemiator, who is, perhaps, alone in his praise of the 



" O, raven ! croaking on the tree, 

 "Woe to the man who injures thee ! 

 Thou brought'st the persecuted food, 

 Friend of the prophet, child of good, 

 Maligned, but little understood ; 

 "Woe to the man who injures thee ! 

 Childless he is, or childless he shall be." 



Indigenous. 



SPECIES 63 THE CARRION CROW. 



Corvus corone. Linn. 

 Corneille noire. Temrn. 



THE rarest of the Corvidse in its occurrence, the carrion crow 

 is a species very local in its distribution, and appears to fre- 

 quent principally the northern portions of the island. Of 

 similar habits as the raven, it employs even more sagacity in 

 its search for food, as the following instance, occurring to Mr. 

 F. Fielding, of Norwich, abundantly testifies. u A heronry, 

 from which I had on many occasions received heron's eggs, 

 broken in a manner difficult to account for, and in most in- 

 stances found upon the ground, induced me to watch in the 

 vicinity, when, in the absence of the heron, a carrion crow 

 dived into the elm tree where the nest was situated, and bore 

 off an egg in triumph. On shouting, he made away more ra- 

 pidly, but retaining his hold upon his ill-gotten plunder." 



After many years of close attention to the species occurring 

 in our eastern counties, we have never had the good fortune 

 to meet with this bird. Our only opportunity of observing 

 it was in the summer of 1846, when two specimens in a re- 

 cent state came under notice with Mr. Glennon, to whom they 

 had been forwarded from the county of Clare. Both birds 

 had the bills and heads deeply encrusted with soft earth, and, 

 as remarked in Mr. Thompson's work, when examined on 

 similar occasions, they were completely swarming with sin- 



