70 
THE CROW. 
American birds. Kalm indeed informs us, that the natural 
song is excellent; but this traveller seems not to have 
been long enough in America to have distinguished what 
were the genuine notes : with us, mimics do not often suc- 
ceed but in imitations. I have little doubt, however, but 
that this bird would be fully equal to the song of the 
nightingale in its whole compass ; but then, from the atten- 
tion which the Mocker pays to any other sort of disagreeable 
noise, these capital notes would be always debased by a bad 
mixture.” 
THE CROW. ( Corvus Coronet) 
Mr. Wilson considers our American Crow identical 
with the European species. It is eighteen inches and a 
half long, and three feet two inches in extent ; the colour 
shining glossy blue-black ; bill and legs black. In other 
particulars it agrees with the European Crow. 
He is the most generally known and least beloved of all 
our land birds; having (as Mr. Wilson observes) neither 
melody of song, nor beauty of plumage, nor excellence of 
flesh, nor civility of manners to recommend him ; on the 
contrary, he is branded as a thief and a plunderer — a kind 
of black-coated vagabond, who hovers over the fields of the 
industrious, fattening on their labours, and, by his voracity, 
