78 The Naturalist in Siluria. 



outbouse enclosures, and carries off weakling chickSj 

 despite the protecting efforts of the enraged parent. 

 The Crow otherwise is not only innocuous, but of great 

 benefit to the farmer, its principal food being the larvae 

 of noxious insects. It is especially destructive to the 

 scarabidce, and in search of these explores every drop- 

 ping of cattle, often scattering the heaps, which, left 

 untouched, would be injurious to the after pasture. In 

 regard to these droppings, I have observed a fact worth 

 recording. It is well known that cows will not eat the 

 grass which grows out of their own ordure. I had a 

 pasture field where this was plenteous, the rank spots 

 showing conspicuous all over it, into which two of my 

 horses were turned ; and while the former carefully 

 shunned the rich succulent herbage originating from 

 themselves, the latter greedily ate it, browsing it down 

 to the roots ! 



Reverting to the Carrion Crow, it takes a practised eye 

 to tell one of these birds from a rook at 200 yards 

 distance. There is scarce any appreciable difference in 

 their size, shape, or colour, while they are almost as one 

 in gait and general action. Seen near enough, however, 

 there is no difficulty in distinguishing the species, the 

 bare triangular disc at the base of the rook's bill being 

 the best mark of distinction. Several pairs of Carrion 

 Crows breed in Penyard Wood, each couple solitary, and 

 not in companionship, as do the rooks. Just above my 

 house, in the trees which grow against a steep escarp- 

 ment, nests a pair, which I look upon as my especial 

 pets. They spend most of their time on a stretch of 

 pasture visible from my drawing-room windows, they 

 and their last year's progeny stalking carelessly and 

 majestically about among my black, but white-faced and 



