CROW. 8$ 



young chickens, he is considered as an outlaw, and sentenced 

 to destruction. But the great difficulty is, how to put this 

 sentence in execution. In vain the gunner skulks along the 

 hedges and fences ; his faithful sentinels planted on some 

 commanding point, raise the alarm, and disappoint vengeance 

 of its object. The coast again clear, he returns once more in 

 silence, to finish the repast he had begun. Sometimes he 

 approaches the farm house by stealth, in search of young 

 chickens, which he is in the habit of snatching off, when he 

 can elude the vigilance of the mother hen, who often proves 

 too formidable for him. A few days ago, a crow was observed 

 eagerly attempting to seize some young chickens in an orchard, 

 near the room where I write; but these clustering close round 

 the hen, she resolutely defended them, drove the crow into 

 an apple tree, whither she instantly pursued him with such 

 spirit and intrepidity, that he was glad to make a speedy 

 retreat, and abandon his design. 



The crow himself sometimes falls a prey to the superior 

 strength and rapacity of the great owl, whose weapons of 

 offence are by far the more formidable of the two.* 



* " A few years ago," says an obliging correspondent, " I resided on 

 the banks of the Hudson, about seven miles from the city of New York. 

 Not far from the place of my residence was a pretty thick wood or 

 swamp, in which great numbers of crows, who used to cross the river 

 from the opposite shore, were accustomed to roost. Returning home- 

 ward one afternoon, from a shooting excursion, I had occasion to pass 

 through this swamp. It was near sunset, and troops of crows were fly- 

 ing in all directions over my head. While engaged in observing their 

 flight, and endeavouring to select from among them an object to shoot 

 at, my ears were suddenly assailed by the distressful cries of a crow, 

 who was evidently struggling under the talons of a merciless and 

 rapacious enemy. I hastened to the spot whence the sounds proceeded, 

 and, to my great surprise, found a crow lying on the ground, just ex- 

 piring, and seated upon the body of the yet warm and bleeding quarry, 

 a large brown owl, who was beginning to make a meal of the unfortunate 

 robber of corn fields. Perceiving my approach, he forsook his prey 

 with evident reluctance, and flew into a tree at a little distance, where 

 he sat watching all my movements, alternately regarding, with longing 

 eyes, the victim he had been forced to leave, and darting at me no very 



