THE CARRION, OR COMMON CROW 



103 



from on high to break the shells, and thus to get at the contents 

 Willughby says, that Kavens may be trained to fowling like hawks, 

 Tbe faculty of scent in these birds must be very acute ; for in the 

 coldest of the winter-days, at Hudson's Bay, when every kind of 

 effluvia is almost instantaneously destroyed by the frost, Buffaloes 

 aad other beasts have been killed where not one of these birds was 

 s^en ; but, in a few hours, scores of them have been found collected 

 * bout the spot, to pick up the blood and offal. 



THE CARRION, OR COMMON CROW. 



These birds live chiefly in pairs, in the woods where they build 

 their nests on the trees. 

 The female lays five or 

 six eggs, much like 

 those of the Raven ; and, 

 while sitting, is always 

 fed by the male. They 

 feed on putrid flesh of 

 all sorts ; as well as on 

 worms, insects, and 

 various kinds of grain. 

 Like the Ravens, they 

 sometimes pick out the 

 eyes of La,mbs when just 

 dropped. They also 

 do much mischief in 

 Rabbit-warrens, by OAREION CR0 ^ 



killing and devouring . . 



the young Rabbits ; and Chickens and young Ducks do not always 

 escape their attacks. 



Mr. Montagu states, that he once saw a Crow in pursuit of a 

 Pigeon, at which it made several pounces like a Hawk; but the 

 Pigeon escaped by flying in at the door of a house. He saw another 

 strike a Pigeon dead from the top of a barn. It is so bold a bird, 

 that neither the Kite, the Buzzard, nor the Raven, approaches its nest 

 without being driven away. When it has young-ones it will even 

 insult the Peregrine Falcon, and at a single pounce will bring that 

 bird to the ground. 



When poultry-hens lay their eggs in hedge-bottoms or stack-yards, 

 Crows are often caught in the act of devouring them. On the 

 northern coast of Ireland, a friend of Dr. Darwin saw above a 

 hundred Crows at once preying upon Muscles: each Crow took a 

 Muscle up into the air twenty or thirty yards high, and let it fall on 

 the stones, and thus, by breaking the shell, got possession of the 

 animal. It is related that a certain ancient philosopher, walking 

 along the sea-shore to gather shells, one of these unlucky birda 

 mistaking his bald head for a stone dropped a shell-fish upon it, and 

 kilted at once a philosopher and an Oyster. 



