84 CROW. 



Towards the close of summer, the parent crows, with their 

 new families, forsaking their solitary lodgings, collect together, 

 as if by previous agreement, when evening approaches. About 

 an hour before sunset, they are first observed, flying, some- 

 what in Indian file, in one direction, at a short height above 

 the tops of the trees, silent and steady, keeping the general 

 curvature of the ground, continuing to pass sometimes till 

 after sunset, so that the whole line of march would extend for 

 many miles. This circumstance, so familiar and picturesque, 

 has not been overlooked by the poets, in their descriptions of 

 a rural evening. Burns, in a single line, has finely sketched 

 it:— 



" The blackening trains of crows to their repose." 



The most noted crow-roost with which I am acquainted is 

 near Newcastle, on an island in the Delaware. It is there 

 known by the name of the Pea Patch, and is a low, flat, 

 alluvial spot, of a few acres, elevated but a little above high 

 water mark, and covered with a thick growth of reeds. This 



friendly looks, that seemed to reproach me for having deprived him of 

 his expected regale. I confess that the scene before me was altogether 

 novel and surprising. I am but little conversant with natural history ; 

 but I had always understood, that the depredations of the owl were con- 

 fined to the smaller birds and animals of the lesser kind, such as mice, 

 young rabbits, &c, and that he obtained his prey rather by fraud and 

 stratagem, than by open rapacity and violence. I was the more con- 

 firmed in this belief, from the recollection of a passage in Macbeth, 

 which now forcibly recurred to my memory. — The courtiers of King 

 Duncan are recounting to each other the various prodigies that pre- 

 ceded his death, and one of them relates to his wondering auditors, that 



' An eagle, towering in his pride of place, 

 "Was by a mousing oicl hawk'd at and kill'd.' 



But to resume my relation : That the owl was the murderer of the 

 unfortunate crow, there could be no doubt. No other bird of prey was 

 in sight ; I had not fired my gun since I entered the wood ; nor heard 

 any one else shoot : besides, the unequivocal situation in which I found 

 the parties would have been sufficient before any 'twelve good men and 

 true,' or a jury of crows, to have convicted him of his guilt. It is proper 

 to add, that I avenged the death of the hapless crow by a well-aimed 

 shot at the felonious robber, that extended him breathless on the ground." 



