92 



THE CARRION CROW. 



the distance. Then, again, how eager is his pursuit ! 

 — how loud his croaking ! — how inveterate his hos- 

 tility ! — when he has espied a fox stealing away 

 from the hounds, under the covert of some friendly 

 hedge. His compact and well-built figure, too, and 

 the fine jet black of his plumage, are, in my eye, 

 beautifully ornamental to the surrounding sylvan 

 scenery. 



A very small share of precaution, on the part of 

 the henwife, would effectually preserve her chickens 

 and her ducklings from the dreaded grasp of the 

 carrion crow. Let her but attend to the suggestion 

 of setting her early ducks' eggs under a hen, and let 

 her keep that hen from rambling, and she will find 

 her best hopes realised. As for the game, I verily 

 believe that, in most cases, the main cause of the 

 destruction of its eggs may be brought home to 

 the gamekeeper himself. This unrelenting butcher 

 of our finest and rarest British birds goes, forsooth, 

 and makes a boast to his master that he has a 

 matter of five hen pheasants hatching in such a 

 wood, and as many partridges in the adjacent 

 meadows. This man probably never reflects that, 

 in his rambles to find the nests of these birds, he 

 has made a track, which will often be followed up 

 by the cat, the fox, and the weasel, to the direful 

 cost of the sitting birds ; and, moreover, that by his 

 own obtrusive and unexpected presence in a place 

 which ought to be free from every kind of inspection, 

 whether of man or beast, he has driven the bird 

 precipitately from her nest, by which means the eggs 



