240 
ON THE VICINITY OF ST. PETERSBURGH. 
in the beds of rivers, or wherever it meets with an obstacle to its passage; is 
sifted between the trunks of trees in the forest, and there, collected by the luxu¬ 
riant underwood, remains and hardens. To walk upon it in this season with 
common shoes is disagreeable, for a person flounders over his knees at every step 
he takes, which, in the language of a grave Cambridge professor, “ renders 
itinerating very injucundfor though it is hard beneath, the superstratum is 
light and yielding. 
The ornithologist near St. Petersburgh finds but scanty materials at this season 
for the pursuit of his favourite study. Birds, as a nation, are wise creatures, and 
know the inestimable blessing of a mild climate, as thoroughly as an Englishman 
knows the comforts of his own fireside; and I think it would not be a difficult 
thing to prove, from iEsop’s and other fables, that they have advanced in the 
“ march of intellect” many ages before the brute creation; we all know how the 
cock got to windward of the Fox in Dryden’s account, and then the trick of the 
Stork; but be this as it may, very few of the feathered tribe remain to brave a 
St. Petersburgh Winter, though in the Summer they evince a partiality for the 
neighbourhood. 
Of the resident birds, the first I shall notice is the Hooded Crow (Corvus 
cornix ), which continues in tolerable plenty throughout the year, though the 
majority of birds that are bred at, and resort to this place in the Summer 
months, congregate about the middle of October in large flocks, and seek a 
warmer latitude ; the others, having their “ res frumentaria 7 ' in the fields cut off 
by the unrelenting hand of the greybeard Winter, have to depend upon Man for 
their Winter resources; on this account (and being probably pinched by the 
weather) they become exceedingly tame, lurk about Pig-holes, and the back-yards 
of houses, occupying the dirt-heap, in company perhaps with a Magpie and some 
vagabond Dog; of the latter there are dozens (I may hereafter speak of them), 
which enjoy a glorious independence, having neither home nor master, and the 
only drawback to whose happiness is an occasional projectile in the shape of a 
stick or stone sometimes following close in the wake of their rumps; and a 
scarcity of the 44 res frumentaria .” So little molestation does this bird meet from 
Man here, that he seldom troubles himself to fly up when the door of a house 
within a few yards of him is opened for the egress of an inmate; two or three 
longside hops, with sometimes a slight expansion of the wings, remove him a few 
paces, and he begins, with perfect sang froid , to whet his beak upon a stone, or 
any other thing that he likes better; on the high road surrounded by houses, he 
will allow foot passengers and carriages to pass within five or six yards of him. 
I have seen a rencontre between this bird and a small Dog, in which the first 
endeavoured to possess himself of a bone, the latter trying to preserve it with all 
his energies, till he was compelled to relinquish the spoil to his rather formidable 
