CROWS 123 



his bone ! " The language that crow used was 

 dreadful, standing with his feet wide apart, and 

 swearing at Klinker as he lay at full length 

 crunching the crow's bone. The impudent crows 

 sit on odd corners of windows and doors wait- 

 ing for meals to be finished, so that they may 

 possibly get a pick at the plates. The last thing 

 I would do would be to feed a crow, so I will 

 not allow Canary to indulge in one of the customs 

 so dear to an Eastern, that of throwing out of 

 doors all scraps of meat, fish, and vegetables, 

 from the plates, leaving the pile of rubbish for 

 hours till the sweeper makes his rounds. This is 

 why we have so very little of the crow nuisance 

 here, which renders the city almost intolerable. 

 There thousands of them awaken the weary 

 sleeper at dawn, with their hoarse discordant 

 screeches, and again in the evening at roosting 

 time ; and there they become so bold that they will 

 abstract the toast from baby fingers, or from the 

 table at which one is writing. On arriving in India 

 for the first time a quarter of a century ago, my 

 deepest ineffaceable impressions were crows, flam- 

 ing sun, and scarlet Hibiscus. In those days there 



