THE CROW. 3 



parts that should be grey in the normally-coloured 

 €row are lighter than the rest. Such " off-coloured " 

 Crows are said to be tabooed by Crow society, but 

 this does not seem to be the case with birds suffering 

 from deformity or disease. I knew for years a Crow 

 residing in or near Sudder Street which suffered 

 from some unsightly and doubtless highly unpleasant 

 disease of the feet, which makes those members look 

 as if the bird had just been walking in thick mud ; 

 and evidently they were very tender, judging from 

 the gingerly way in which this sufferer walked. Yet 

 I cannot doubt from the many accounts I have 

 received of it that a damaged Crow is often worried 

 to death by its fellows, and I myself once saw one that 

 seemed to have been having a very bad time at their 

 hands, or what did duty as such. But, nevertheless, 

 the Crow is a bird of many social virtues ; he will 

 certainly rescue a friend in distress if he can, for his 

 evident and loudly expressed indignation when one 

 handles a dead or living comrade of his makes it plain 

 that a less powerful enemy than man would probably 

 be seriously attacked. Also he is a good husband, 

 feeding his wife assiduously, and letting her pull 

 their conmnon booty away from him ; and a tender 

 parent, much attached to his abominable offspring, 

 in defence of which Crows will attack even a human 

 being at times. The Crow, however, while looking 



