HERMIT CROW. 3S3 



it feeds upon grasshoppers, crickets, little fishes, 

 and frogs. It builds for the most part in the high 

 walls of demolished or ruinous towers, which are 

 common in the mountainous parts of Switzerland, 

 In the stomach of one dissected, besides . other 

 insects I sometimes found very many of those 

 which eat the roots of corn, especially millet. The 

 French call them Curtillas, our countrymen the 

 Germans Tuaren, from the size of their feet, (as I 

 conjecture.) They eat also those grubs of which 

 the May-Flies are bred. They fly very high: 

 they lay two or three eggs. The first of all, (as 

 far as I know,) fly away about the beginning of 

 June, if I be not mistaken. Their young, taken 

 out of the nest before they can fly, may easily be 

 fed, and made so tame as to fly out into the fields, 

 and return of their own accord. The young ones 

 are commended for good meat, and counted a 

 dainty : their flesh is sweet, and their bones tender 

 Those that take them out of the nest are wont to 

 leave one in each, that they may the more willingly 

 return the following year. They are called by 

 our countrymen IFaldrapp, that is Wood-Crows, 

 because they are wont to live in woody, mountain- 

 ous, and desert places, where they build in rocks 

 or old forsaken towers; wherefore they are also 

 called Steinrappy and elsewhere, in Bavaria and 

 Stiria, Clausrapp, from the rocks or craggs and 

 straits between mountains, which the Germans 

 call Clausen, that is, enclosed places, wherein they 

 build their nests/* 



Mr. Willughby imagined this bird to be no 



