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 will 
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 i\e 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 
