79 



CROW. 



COBVUS CORONE. 

 [Plate XXXV.— Fig. 3.] 



Pe ale's Museum, A''o. 1246. 



THIS is perhaps the most generally known, and least beloved, 

 of all our land birds ; having neither melody of song, nor beauty of 

 plumage, nor excellence of flesh, nor civility of manners to recom- 

 mend him ; on the contrary he is branded as a thief and a plun- 

 derer; a kind of black-coated vagabond, who hovers over the fields 

 of the industrious, fattening on their labours ; and by his voracity 

 often blasting their expectations. Hated as he is by the farmer, 

 watched and persecuted by almost every bearer of a gun, who all 

 triumph in his destruction, had not heaven bestowed on him intel- 

 ligence and sagacity far beyond common, there is reason to believe 

 that the whole tribe (in these parts at least) would long ago have 

 ceased to exist. 



The Crow is a constant attendant on agriculture, and a gene- 

 ral inhabitant of the cultivated parts of North America. In the 

 interior of the forest he is more rare, unless during the season of 

 breeding. He is particularly attached to low flat corn countries, 

 lying in the neighbourhood of the sea or of large rivers ; and more 

 numerous in the northern than southern states, where Vultures 

 abound, and with whom the Crows are unable to contend. A 

 strong antipathy, it is also said, prevails between the Crow and the 

 Raven, insomuch that where the latter are numerous, the former 

 rarely resides. Many of the first settlers of the Gennesee country 

 have informed me, that for a long time. Ravens were numerous 

 with them, but no Crows ; and even now the latter are seldom ob- 



