292 THE CARRION CROW. 



shape and colour. This irregularity is so very apparent, that on 

 examining the nests of some carrion crows with eggs in them, you 

 might fancy to yourself that the rook had been there, to add one of 

 hers to those already laid by the original owner. This bird never 

 builds its nest in hedges, but will construct it in any of our forest 

 trees'; and, with me, it seems to give the preference, in general, to the 

 oak, the spruce fir, and the Scotch pine. The young are hatched 

 naked and blind, and remain blind for some days. 



Our ancestors, no doubt, bestowed the epithet " carrion " upon 

 this bird, in order to make a clear and decided distinction between 

 it (whose flesh, they probably supposed, was rank and bad) and the 

 rook, the flesh of which was well known to be good and wholesome 

 food. Perhaps, too, in those days of plenty and of less trade, the 

 carrion crow had more opportunities of tasting flesh than it has in 

 these our enviable times of divers kinds of improvement. Were a 

 carrion crow of the present day to depend upon the finding of a 

 dead cow or horse for its dinner, it would soon become an adept in 

 the^.rt of fasting by actual experiment; for no sooner is one of these 

 animals, in our neighbourhood, struck by the hand of death, than its 

 hide is sent to the tan-pit, and its remains are either made into soup 

 for the hunt, or carefully buried in the dunghill, to increase the farmer's 

 tillage. The poor crow, in the meantime, despised and persecuted 

 for having an inclination to feed upon that of which, by the by, the 

 occupier of the soil takes good care that he shall scarcely have a 

 transient view, is obliged to look out for other kinds of food. Hence 

 you see it regularly examining the meadows, the pastures, and the 

 corn-fields, with an assiduity not even surpassed by that of the rook 

 itself. We labour under a mistake in supposing that the flesh of the 

 young carrion crow is rank and unpalatable. It is fully as good as 

 that of the rook ! and I believe that nobody who is accustomed to 

 eat rook-pie will deny that rook-pie is nearly, if not quite, as good as 

 pigeon-pie. Having fully satisfied myself of the delicacy of the flesh 

 of young carrion crows, I once caused a pie of these birds to be 

 served up to two convalescent friends, whose stomachs would have 

 yearned spasmodically had they known the nature of the dish. I 

 had the satisfaction of seeing them make a hearty meal upon what 

 the}' considered pigeon-pie. The carrion crow will feed voraciously 



