onsumes, in the course of the year, vast quantities of grubs, worms,
and noxious vermin; he is a valuable scavenger, and clears the land
of offensive masses of decaying animal substances; he hunts the
grass-fields, and pulls out and devours the underground caterpillars,
wherever he perceives the signs of their operations, as evinced by the
wilted stalks; he destroys mice, young rats, lizards, and the smaller
serpents; lastly, he is a volunteer sentinel about the farm, and drives
the Hawk from its inclosures, thus preventing greater mischief than
that of which he himself is guilty. It is chiefly during seed-time and
harvest that the depredations of the Crow are committed; during the
remainder of the year we witness only his services; and so highly are
these services appreciated by those who have written of birds, that I
cannot name an ornithologist who does not plead in his behalf.

Let us turn our attention, for a moment, to his moral qualities. In vain
is he accused of cunning, when without this quality he could not live.
His wariness is really a virtue, and, under the circumstances in which
he is placed, it is his principal means of self-preservation. He has no
moral principles, no creed, to which he is under obligations to offer
himself as a martyr. His cunning is his armor; and I am persuaded that
the persecutions to which he has always been subjected have caused the
development of an amount of intelligence that elevates him many degrees
above the majority of the feathered race.

There are few birds that equal the Crow in sagacity. He observes many
things that would seem to require the faculties of a rational being. He
judges with accuracy, from the deportment of the person approaching him,
if he is prepared to do him an injury; and seems to pay no regard to one
who is strolling the fields in search of flowers or for recreation. On
such occasions, one may get so near him as to observe his manners, and
even to note the varying shades of his plumage. But in vain does the
sportsman endeavor to approach him. So sure is he to fly at the right
moment for his safety, that one might suppose he could measure the
distance of gunshot.

The voice of the Crow is like no other sound uttered by the feathered
race; it is harsh and unmelodious, and though he is capable, when
domesticated, of imitating human speech, he cannot sing. But Aesop
mistook the character of this bird when he represented him as the dupe
of the fox, who gain