To Mountain Tarn 



kindliest of naturalists and of men tells us that 

 he never spared the grey crow. He who protests 

 against the destruction of hawks has no word for 

 this double-dyed offender. And on the face of it 

 he seems to deserve all the hard words and harder 

 deeds. But is he so much to blame to whom 

 nature is so stepmotherly, giving him bare lodging 

 on the moor or in mountain corrie, and sending 

 him out to find his own board ? If the gulls are 

 not so unpopular, it may be because they look so 

 much whiter than they are, and their deeds are 

 not so often seen. 



I confess to a warm side to these tramps, over- 

 looked when the others got their portions, and 

 taught no trade whereby they might win their 

 own food. For the gulls who watch the divers 

 going down among the shoals till the last sand-eel 

 stands out of their bills, and can only kick their 

 webbed feet in impotence against the yielding 

 water. For the crows, ousted even from the 

 respectable society of the hawks and dubbed 

 rascals. It is so like something we are familiar 

 with in our own kind. 



Two of our crows are not sombre, but dressed 

 in gay attire. They are the most striking, if not 

 also the most charming, of natives. No bird can 

 be quite so gay as a crow. Liveliness and wit 

 heighten the charm. Both are large enough to 

 show the colours distinctly, in the distance at 

 which wild birds allow themselves to be seen. 



171 



