Hooded Crow. 235 



have such a partiality for its bold jaunty air, and its independent 

 impudent habits, that I cannot bear to think of my old friend 

 being thus suppressed altogether, or at best allowed but a half 

 existence, to be shared with a brother of sable hue. It reminds 

 me of the trite assertion that cannot be disputed, that the negro 

 is a fellow man and a brother with the free born- American or 

 Britisher ; but that does not prevent the general practice of an 

 absolute avoidance of the man of colour, and of the provision in 

 every railway train of a separate car for the negroes. So if the 

 two species of Crows were once identical, methinks C. comix has 

 raised himself above his congener, and has a right to the footing 

 he has so long secured. At all events I must be allowed to 

 regard it as all our older ornithologists have ever done, and deal 

 with it as a true species. Apart, however, from the interest in 

 so handsome a bird, I fear I have but little good to say of it. 



With all the bad and none of the good qualities of the preced- 

 ing, this Crow is no favourite in those parts of England where it 

 abounds. It is a determined destroyer of the eggs and young 

 of game birds, more especially of the genus Grouse, and is 

 cowardly as well as cruel in the execution of its victims. Mr 

 St. John, in his ' Field Notes and Tour in Sutherland,' speaks of 

 it in no measured terms, and declares it is the ' only bird against 

 which he urges constant and unpi tying warfare,' and he excuses 

 himself for so doing on the plea that he has so often detected it 

 destroying his most favourite birds and eggs, that he has no pity 

 on it : and Mr. Knox, the intelligent author of ' Game Birds and 

 Wild Fowl ' has not a word to say in its favour : not even Mr. 

 Waterton, the general champion of the oppressed, has a good 

 word for the Hooded Crow ; so that we may congratulate our- 

 selves that it only appears in Wiltshire occasionally. Its visits, 

 however, are frequent enough to render it familiar to most 

 people. I have myself often seen it on the Marlborough Downs, 

 and I have many notices of it from various parts of the county, 

 more especially in the neighbourhood of Salisbury, where it 

 frequents the water meadows in the winter months, at which 

 season only it migrates so far south ; but its visits are, I fear, 



