Practical Game-Preserving. 374 



vigilance is necessary, while even in localities where the 

 bird is not plentiful and comparatively harmless, there 

 are sure to be one or two wary old crows about, which 

 invariably turn up at odd moments, and, in spite of close 

 vigilance, will manage to snap up one or more by repeated 

 visits at odd intervals. 



Wherever many young pheasants are reared and allowed 

 out of the runs when small, these sombre thieves will be 

 on the alert, and many, indeed, are the raids they annually 

 commit in this direction. In addition to thus inflicting 

 loss, the crow is a remarkably persevering thief in respect 

 of the eggs deposited in outlying corners, &c., by perverse- 

 natured hens which will lay astray, and it is not un- 

 common for some wily old Carrion Crow systematically to 

 visit such a nest and daily to purloin the freshly-laid eggs. 

 These depredations in and around the buildings are, for 

 the most part, carried on either in the early morning, or 

 at least before the middle of the day has arrived, with its 

 consequent bustling about, and, although the crow is dis- 

 posed to snap up any duckling or chicken which may be 

 roaming the fields at some slight distance from the house, 

 its favourite way is to hang about in the morning, and 

 according to circumstances betake itself subsequently to 

 some more distant parts of the place, where it may con- 

 veniently have a good time amongst the young and eggs of 

 the game, or disport itself on young rabbits or leverets. I 

 mention these habits of the crow in respect to young 

 poultry more particularly, as, although its chief mischief 

 is amongst the game, it renders itself as easily taken by 

 traps, &c., in the former case as in the latter. As the 

 season for the above-named food draws to a close, the crow 

 is obliged to make shift in other directions than in the 

 preserves and poultry-yard, and although it prefers at all 

 times food of the nature just described, when the carcase of 



