198 BOMBAY DUCKS 
Here, again, the owl cannot be called an enemy of 
the crow. It is true that there is one species which is 
said to wring young crows’ necks in the dead of night ; 
but this owl did not belong to that species, The crows 
merely set upon the owl because it was a strange crea- 
ture, and they regard all strange creatures as enemies, 
and mobbing is the treatment meted out by crows to 
their foes. Allied to this hostility to all strange-looking 
creatures is one of the most curious phenomena in 
nature—the brutal way in which a wounded animal is 
treated by its fellows. Instead of caring for it and 
tending it, they set upon it and kill it, being, apparently, 
quite indifferent to its cries. 
The other day, while driving along the main street of 
Madras, I saw a crow whose legs had been tied to its 
tail. It looked a most ludicrous object as it ran along, 
and fully twenty crows were accompanying it, regarding 
it with hostile eyes. They probably eventually pecked 
it to death. I am told that there used to be a Madras 
Civil Servant who hated crows with a great hatred. 
It was his wont to catch these birds, shave off their 
feathers, and paint the bare skin red or blue. The 
birds thus disfigured were, on liberation, immediately 
set upon by their fellows and killed. “This habit,” 
writes Lockwood Kipling, is “reported to have sug- 
gested a stratagem by which omnivorous gipsy folk 
catch crows. A live crow is spread-eagled on his back, 
with forked pegs holding down his pinions. He flutters 
and cries, and the other crows come to investigate his 
case and presently attack him. With claws and beak 
he seizes an assailant and holds him fast. The gipsy ” 
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