CARRION CROW. 191 



dread and aversion, although on this subject opinions are at 

 variance, whether their utility as destroyers of vermin and 

 devourers of objects obnoxious to the senses, may not more 

 than compensate on a large scale for the mischiefs perpetrated 

 by them. 



Crows, although not gregarious, appear more sociably to 

 consort with other members of the Corvida in general than 

 the raven does ; except during the breeding season, when they 

 keep aloof from their own species, two pairs being seldom 

 found to breed near one another. " Crows go in pairs the 

 whole year round," says Gilbert White ; it is therefore 

 probable that, like ravens, they pair for life. 



The flight of the Carrion Crow is buoyant and steady : 

 when on the search for food he may be often seen, if in the 

 vicinity of a farm-yard, to wheel and circle slowly round 

 and round, his head inclined, and his gaze carefully bent upon 

 the objects below, now wheeling higher, now lower, as he is 

 alternately tempted by an opportunity of plunder, or scared 

 away by the appearance of some object of which he is himself 

 afraid. We have sometimes been greatly interested in 

 watching these proceedings : as well as in observing the 

 anxiety with which the intruder is regarded by the feathered 

 tribes in the farm-yard, — the upturned and foolish gaze of the 

 ducks peering aloft with one anxious eye, the hens fidgetty 

 and fearful for their infant charge ; and have admired the 

 instantaneous rush of the young brood for shelter the moment 

 the warning note of the alarmed mother was given. 



" The Carrion Crow," says Mr. Hepburn of East Lothian, 

 " haunts our fields in pairs throughout the latter months of 

 autumn and winter, until the return of spring recals him 

 and his dark mate to the upland plantations and hill sides, 

 where they rear their young in comparative safety. On 

 returning to their summer quarters they add grain to their 

 bill of fare. Almost every spring a pair or two attend 



