From Agricultural Gazette of JST, S. Wales. 
September , 1896. 
The Common Crow. 
By N. A. COBB. 
I stand up for the crow. It is high time he was let alone. We know 
better, or we ought to know better, than to go on killing crows, nevertheless 
we continue to kill them indiscriminately. The simple truth is that crows 
do man more good than harm, and that o£ the two, man and crow, the 
former is showing himself to be the more stupid and the more blind to his 
own welfare. 
The crow is the victim of unreasoning human prejudice, which is about 
the biggest misfortune that can befall anybody or anything. To begin with, 
the crow is black, and that alone puts him at a disadvantage at first sight. 
Then his breath smells bad, and he sings out “ Ah ! ” “ Ah ! ” in a tone of 
voice that the guilty or supersensitive conscience of nine men out of ten 
construes into a direct personal insult. 
What business has the crow to know too much to come within sixty 
yards of a gun ?—for it is a notorious fact that he is often a better judge 
of the range of the sportsman’s gun than the sportsman himself. His 
superior prowess makes him unpopular with sportsmen and all others who 
attempt to shoot him. People don’t like to be outwitted, and are wont to 
vent their spleen on the intelligence that outwits them. The crow is too 
sharp. If he would only be so amiable as to allow himself to be shot oftener 
by blunderers with a gun he would become less unpopular. 
It is a slight blot on the intelligence of the crow that he takes so little 
pains to conceal the fact that he gets up early. Most people don’t see the 
sun rise once a month. They know that they would be much better oft if 
they did, and they therefore soon get a grudge against any one who, by his 
exemplary habit cf early rising, constantly reminds them of their own 
deficiencies. Therefore, all early risers who are wise should keep this 
virtue a secret, and not flaunt it in public. Herein the crow fails. He gets 
up before sunrise and often makes a great hubbub about it. Then he goes 
and does some piece of mischief in the back yard, which makes you feel that 
it would not have happened if you had been up early, as you know you 
ought to have been. This makes yon uncomfortable, and gives you a spite 
against the crow. 
The celebrated Henry Ward Beecher long ago remarked that if men were 
feathered out and given a pair of wings, a very few of them would be clever 
enough to be crows. Most of us, it would seem, according to this authority, 
would be only fit to become common or garden sparrows, the high station of 
crow being reserved for geniuses, prime ministers, and other greatnesses. 
Everybody is down on the crow. From our legislators, who frame laws 
against him, and our commissioners, who put a price on his head, to the 
boy who vainly tries to bring him down w r ith a gun, there comes a chorus 
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