THE CARRION CROW. 



91 



her wings. During these useless movements, the 

 invader secures his prey with impunity. 



I would recommend all henwives, in early spring, 

 to place their ducks' eggs under a hen. At that 

 time of the year there are no weeds on ponds suffici- 

 ciently high to afford shelter to the young, when they 

 are led on to the water by their real mother. If the 

 first sitting of eggs be taken from a duck, she v/ill 

 generally lay a second time ; and that will be at a 

 period when the water abounds with weeds, amongst 

 which the young brood can skulk, and screen itself 

 from the watchful eye of an enemy. 



From what I have written, the reader may be able 

 to form a pretty correct idea of the habits of the 

 carrion crow ; and he will perceive that, for nearly 

 ten months of the year, this bird, far from being 

 considered an enemy, ought to be pronounced the 

 friend of man. 



Let us now examine if the attacks of this bird on 

 domestic poultry cannot be easily counteracted ; 

 and whether its assiduous attention to the nests of 

 pheasants and of partridges is of so alarming and so 

 important a nature as to call for its utter extermina- 

 tion from the land. For my own part, I acknowledge 

 that I should lament his final absence from our 

 meadows and our woods. His loud and varied notes 

 at early dawn, and again at latest eve, are extremely 

 grateful to me ; and many an hour of delight do I 

 experience, when, having mounted up to the top of 

 a favourite aged oak which grows on the border of 

 a swamp, I see him chasing the heron and the wind- 

 hover through the liquid void, till they are lost in 



