2 
The Common Crow . 
of disapproval, and yet few can tell why all this odium is heaped upon the 
crow. In the tirade against him had words are more common than good 
reasons. A thing in his favour is almost unheard of. The uninformed, 
therefore, naturally come to the conclusion that the crow is thoroughly bad, 
and as black in character as he is in plumage. 
To say a word in favour of the crow is to become a target for ridicule, and 
to seriously take up his defence is to be at once set down by many people as 
either a faddist or a fool. Tor all that, the crow does not lack friends, and 
these are rapidly increasing in number and strength. 
Throughout the world the crow is the same black, gregarious, intelligent 
bird. Though the common European, American, and Australian crows are 
reckoned as three distinct species, it requires an expert to distinguish one 
from the other quickly and with certainty, and the similarity in their outward 
appearance is sustained by internal resemblance and identity of habits. The 
voice, nest, food, tricks of flight, and other traits of the different species of 
common crow are so much alike that whatever of importance is found true 
of one species is sure to be essentially true of all the others. I am sure 
that all ornithologists who have carefully observed, as I have done, the 
habits in the wild state of the three species of crow mentioned above, will 
agree with me in saying that the differences among them, though sufficient 
to justify their separation into three distinct species, are after all trifling. I 
may illustrate my meaning more clearly by saying that if a new island 
continent, similar to Australia, were discovered, and explored by a competent 
zoologist, such a person on examining a single dead common crow from this 
new continent could say with great certainty, “ This species will be found to 
be omnivorous but fond of insects, especially grasshoppers ; a hunter of 
rabbits and similar small mammals, especially when young ; a robber of birds* 
nests ; gregarious ; secretive ; highly intelligent; without objection to carrion ; 
possessed of a song that consists simply of a repetition of the guttural syllable 
‘ Caw’ or ‘ Aw,’ with a variety of accent,”—in short, he would be able, from 
his positive knowledge of the great similarity among the different species of 
common crow, to give a tolerably accurate picture of the habits of this new 
crow. 
Of course, these remarks apply only to the common crow. They would 
not apply to those aberrant species of crow occurring here and there over a 
limited area in different countries. Such aberrant species commonly have 
habits which are distinctly different from those of the common crow occurring 
on the same areas. 
Let anyone who doubts the very great similarity existing among the 
common crows of the different continents compare the following description 
by Samuel N. -Rhoads of the roosting habits of the American crow, with 
what may be observed wherever Australian crows congregate to roost:— 
“ The course adopted in assembling to and departing from the chosen spot 
is uniform everywhere. About an hour before sunset stragglers begin to 
appear, reconnoitering, as it were, to see that the coast is clear, and return¬ 
ing whence they came, as if to inform the main body of the result. In the 
course of half an hour the flocks begin to arrive in broken lines and detach¬ 
ments from all quarters, and, if the evening be calm, their earthward 
descent from a height of many hundred feet exhibits aerial prowess sur¬ 
passing in daring elegance those of any other land bird with which I am 
acquainted. It is their invariable custom to descend to some spot in the 
neighbourhood, from one-half to a quarter of a mile from the roost, pre¬ 
liminary to assembling there for the night’s repose. This may be either 
upon the adjoining fields or on the woodland tracts near by. Such prelimi- 
