ON THE VICINITY OF ST. PETERSBURG!!. 
241 
adversary. In England, when other supplies fail, Corvus cornix devours vora¬ 
ciously the bulbs of Swede Turnips, or as I have frequently heard the Norfolk 
rustics express it, “he joll them out with his bill.” The Raven (C. corax), I 
have been assured, is seen here at this period, but I cannot say that my expe¬ 
rience has confirmed the fact. The Magpie ( C. pica) abounds in Summer; a 
few pairs also remain through the Winter, and become remarkably tame, yet not 
so audacious as their congener, cornix. You do not meet with them in the public 
road near the towns; and though they will sometimes venture, when the coast is 
clear, to search for a dainty morsel amongst the exuvia of the kitchen or the 
fragrant apex of the dirt-heap, they are off under a press of canvass at the first 
intimation of danger; let them be ever so absorbed in sensualizing over Potatoe 
pairings, bones, &c. &c., a slight noise will make them suspend the operation, and 
they directly commence those knowing gestures which recommend them so strongly 
to the affections of ornithologists. The Jackdaw (C. monedula) remains in 
flocks, sometimes associates with dove-cot Pigeons, and will pick up grains of 
Corn that have dropped from vehicles on the road; he resorts, however, as well 
to Pig-sheds and other places where he finds a diet congenial to his palate, but I 
have not often seen him foraging on dirt-heaps like pica and cornix; he is very 
tame nevertheless; and roosts under the roofs of old buildings or churches ; the 
latter do not afford such shelter as ours, which are more decayed (the greater the 
pity), and less taken care of. 
The common Dovecot Pigeon swarms in the city of St. Petersburg^ and the 
country; it is esteemed sacred, and called God’s bird by the Russians, from the 
circumstance of the holy spirit assuming that form when it descended upon our 
Saviour. To kill and eat it, is considered an act of profanation. It is softame 
and incautious in the city, that vehicles have been known to pass over it while 
engaged in picking up the scattered Corn which falls in abundance from the carts. 
I have touched the back of one with a walking switch from a Drosky (a peculiar 
vehicle used in St. Petersburgh), and could have killed it had 1 been so disposed. 
This bird is certainly a nuisance in the city; it perches upon the architraves and 
projections of buildings, marring their beauty, and loads the places where it 
rests with immense collections of dung, and by its flights overhead it may happen 
that the symmetry and polish of a pedestrian’s exquisite coat, or the bonnet, 
parasol, or cloak of some fashionable belle, may meet with the same fate that the 
out-spread banquet of iENEAS received from the Harpies on “ the shores of the 
Strophades.’’ The English and Germans eat the Pigeon; and for their tables 
they are preserved, and sold in the market by the less scrupulous Russians. I 
had one day an opportunity of observing, myself, how the respect for the Pigeon 
prevails amongst the lower orders. I shot six, away from the village, at one shot, 
and brought them home (with the intention of obtaining that master-achievement 
