CRACKLES AND BIRD OF PARADISE. 213 
torrid zones of India to the remoter parts of North 
America: and they might probably be naturalized in 
this and other countries, where hitherto they have 
been strangers. 
Like our Jackdaws, with which, indeed, they are 
very closely allied, being the connecting link be- 
tween the Crow and Thrush tribe, they are a pert, 
familiar, lively race, soon tamed, and when so, 
making themselves so perfectly at home, as to be 
often a great inconvenience. In North America 
they contrive to gain the good will of even a greater 
enemy than man, no less a one than the Osprey, or 
Sea Eagle, which actually permits them to build 
their nest amongst the interstices of the sticks of 
which its own nest is framed, where they hatch 
their young, and live together in harmony'*, like the 
small bird in the nest of the African Eagle, men- 
tioned in p. 131. 
They herd together in immense flocks, rising from 
the ground in such prodigious numbers, that their 
wings make a noise resembling thunder; and when 
they settle, whole trees are covered from the top to 
the lowest branches, looking as black, as if hung in 
mourning. In India they assemble in much the 
same way, though not quite in such abundance, and 
like our Rooks and Crows, are suspected of doing 
mischief, by picking out the new- sown grain ; but 
as we shall soon see when we come to treat of our 
Crows, the charge is a good deal exaggerated. 
It happened some years ago, that one of the 
French islands, in the East Indies, was overrun with 
locusts, to such a degree, that there was every ap- 
* Richardson’s Fauna Americana . 
