22 WILD LIFE IN CHINA. 



yet announced, but it Is evident that there is something in the 

 wind. Still more apparent is it when in the late autumn one 

 notes that new nest sites are being selected. One puts two 

 and two together, and next spring makes them four! 



All this, of course, refers to rooks, not crows. Many 

 people, even scientists, find it difficult to distinguish between 

 the different species of the corvine family. David mentions 

 four varieties in China, Corvus Corax, the raven: Corvus 

 Sinensis, the Chinese rook, Corvus corone, which we know 

 at home as the carrion crow, and Corvus Torquatus, that is 

 the crow with a (white) collar. But other ornithologists 

 differ in their nomenclature of these and other birds, and 

 where doctors differ laymen may well be silent. The best of 

 all distinctions, however, is the fact that whilst rooks are 

 fond of their own society and that of man, crows are mainly 

 of a solitary disposition, a pair holding loyally together 

 whilst life lasts but keeping all others at a distance, except 

 perhaps their own young during their first year. 



Everybody knows of the raven, though few comparat- 

 ively are intimately acquainted with him. I, personally, have 

 seen none in Kiangsu, but in and about Peking he seems to 

 be fairly common. English literature is full of allusions to 

 him, and the stories of his deeds are endless. The raven in 

 "Barnaby Rudge" is a familiar friend to all readers of 

 Dickens. And nobody who knows Edgar Allan Poe is likely 

 to forget that visitor who came "gently rapping at my 

 chamber door" and to every question that was addressed to 

 him answered gravely "Nevermore." Own cousin to him 

 in everything but size is C. corone, the crow, but for some 

 reason or other literary men have neglected the crow. He 

 figures mainly in old women's fables and brings luck, good 

 or ill, according to the number seen together. Sportsmen 

 and keepers look askance at all the crow tribe. They have 

 reason, for the raven and the crow are undoubtedly able and 

 willing to do harm in a variety of ways. They kill the young 

 of other birds, and they are arrant egg stealers. Young 

 rabbits, and hares, lambs, and even sickly adult sheep and 

 deer sometimes fall a prey, for the raven has the intelligence 

 to know how- to organize combined attacks. The consequence 

 is that the "Keeper's Museum", generally the side of some 

 wooden outhouse or barn, is kept pretty full of the hanging 

 bodies of the corvine tribe. Even the rook, helpful as he 

 istothefarmerunderordinary circumstances, will at times so 

 far forget himself as to adopt the bad habits of the raven and 

 the crow. I have seen a golden oriole in hot chase after a 

 rook in a garden on the Bubbling Well Road, a sure sign 

 that the "sooty varmint" had been foraging near the yellow 

 bird's nest. Only a few days ago there was much unac- 



