46 A CRUISE WITH A CROW. 
You would have said he was a crow. So 
he was, in a way, but not owr crow. Looking 
at him closely, you would have exclaimed that 
he was a ‘sport,’ or very old, and had turned 
gray on the back. 
He was undoubtedly a ‘sport,’ but not old, 
and had not turned gray on the back, instead 
of black; it was his natural colour. He was 
a gray crow, alias Royston crow, alzas hoodie- 
crow, alias Danish crow, &c., &e. 
The night shut down on his loneliness, and 
rain added itself to the night, hiding him 
utterly. But the rising sun of the fine next 
morn, bathing a fair south of England beach, 
found him sitting there on the golden sand, a 
ruffled-up blob of evil. 
He appeared to be staring straight out at 
the invisible France whence he had come. 
He was waiting for the receding tide to un- 
cover a shining mussel, really, and when it 
had done so, he rose with the mussel in his 
beak and dropped it. Three times he did this, 
and at the third attempt the mussel cracked, 
and he fed. 
Later he loafed inland—after having quar- 
relled with some gulls over the right to bury 
a stranded haddock—along the shores of the 
estuary, and watched a shore shooter stalking 
peewits from afar. 
