THE MURDEROUS CROW. 131 



and is in the fields all day — these are the victims of the 

 crow. 



Crows work almost always in pairs — it is remarkable 

 that hawks, jays, magpies, crows, nearly all birds of prey, 

 seem to remain in pairs the entire year — and when they 

 have once tasted a member of a brood, be it pheasant, 

 partridge, or chicken, they stay till they have cleared 

 off the lot. Slow of flight and somewhat lazy of habit, 

 they will perch for hours on a low tree, croaking and 

 pruning their feathers ; they peer into every nook and 

 corner of the woodlands, not like the swift hawk, who 

 circles over and is gone and in a few minutes is a mile 

 away. So that neither the mouse in the furrow nor the 

 timid partridge cowering in the hedge can escape their 

 leering eyes. 



Therefore the keeper smites them hip and thigh when- 

 ever he finds them ; and if he comes across the nest, 

 placed on the broad top of a pollard-tree — not in the 

 branches, but on the trunk — sends his shot through it to 

 smash the eggs. For if the young birds come to maturity 

 they will remain in that immediate locality for months, 

 working every hedge and copse and ditch with cruel per- 

 tinacity. In consequence of this unceasing destruction 

 the crow has become much rarer of late, and its nest is 

 hardly to be found in many woods. They breed in the 

 scattered trees of the meadows and fields, especially where 

 no regular game preservation is attempted, and where no 



