THE CROW
“In France we have four kinds of crows: the black crow, the mantled
daw, the rook or harvest crow, and the jackdaw or little belfry crow.
“The black crow has the same plumage and the same general appearance as
the raven, but is one-quarter smaller. During the summer these birds
live in pairs in the woods, which they leave only to get something to
eat. In the spring their food consists of birds’ eggs, especially the
eggs of partridges, which they know how to puncture skilfully so as to
carry them to their young on the point of the beak. Like the raven,
this bird is fond of decayed flesh and little birds still covered with
down. Crows attack small, weak, or wounded game, and venture into
poultry-yards to carry off any unwary ducklings or little chickens that
may have strayed away from their mothers. Spoiled fish, worms, insects,
fruit, seeds, according to season and locality, fill their crop. They
especially like nuts, which they know how to break by letting them fall
from a sufficient height.
“In winter black crows gather in large flocks, either in an unmixed
company or together with rooks and mantled daws. They go wandering
about in the fields, mingling with the flocks and sometimes even
alighting on a sheep’s back to hunt for vermin under the wool. They
follow the plowman to feed on the larvæ turned up by his plowshare; and
they explore the seeded ground and eat recently sown grain made tender
and sweet by germination. Toward evening they fly together to the tall
trees of some neighboring wood, where they chatter noisily as the sun
sets, and smooth their feathers, and finally go to sleep. These trees
are meeting-places where every evening the crows gather from different
quarters, sometimes from several miles around. At daybreak they divide
into flocks of greater or less size and disperse in all directions to
hunt for food in the tilled fields.
“At the end of winter this company is broken up, the crows pair off,
and each pair chooses in the neighboring forests a district a quarter
of a league in extent, from which every other couple is excluded, this
arrangement ensuring sufficient subsistence for each establishment in
the bird colony. The nest is built in some tree of medium size, and is
made of small twigs and roots interwoven and rudely cemented with loam
or horse dung, a mattress of fine rootlets being laid inside. If some
bird of prey happens to come too near this nest, its owners assail the
intruder with fury and crack its skull with a blow of the beak.”
“Good for you, brave crows!” cried Emile. “Your enemies will think
twice before they come and bother you.”
“I admire the courage of crows in protecting their young,” Uncle Paul
admitted; “but I cannot forgive them their plundering of poultry-yards,
their thefts of young birds and eggs, and their upturning of seeded
ground. We must then include the black crow among bandits that are to
be destroyed.
“In the same class, too, we must place the mantled daw, so called from
the sort of grayish-white cloak that reaches from the shoulders to the
tail both in front and on the back. The rest of the plumage is black,
with glints of blue, like the raven’s. This bird comes to us toward the
end of autumn, joins the company of black crows and rooks, and may be
seen searching our fields for larvæ and sprouting grain. On the
seashore, where its numbers are much greater than in the interior, it
lives on fish and mollusks cast up by the waves or left by fishermen.
Only under dire necessity will it touch carrion, the favorite food of
the black crow and the raven. In March the mantled daw leaves us, to go
and breed in the North.
“The rook, which is a little smaller than the black crow, has the
latter’s plumage, but with more of a violet and coppery luster. Its
beak, too, is more nearly straight and has a sharper tip. It is readily
distinguished from the crow and the raven by the characteristic mark of
its occupation, the skin of its forehead and around the beak being bare
of feathers and looking white and powdery, like a scar. Is the bird
born like that? Not at all. Just as a workman handling rough and heavy
objects makes his hands callous, so the rook acquires by its work the
rough and scaly skin so noticeable on its forehead. It is a tireless
digger and its beak is its pick, which it thrusts into the ground as
deeply as it can. From constant friction with the soil the forehead and
the base of the beak lose their feathers and become bald, or even have
the skin itself worn away so as to leave a rough scar. The rook’s
object in this toilsome operation is to capture white worms and all the
destructive larvæ that are such a scourge to our cultivated fields. I
saw some rooks one day hard at work in a waste tract of land, lifting
up and turning over the stones scattered here and there. So eager were
they that they sometimes threw the smaller stones as high as a man’s
head. Now guess what they were looking for so busily. They were looking
for insects and all sorts of vermin. In this work of turning over
stones and digging in the soil rooks cannot fail to injure their tool,
the beak, and they must rub the feathers off from its base.
“I should have a high opinion of these birds if they contented
themselves with hunting insects; but unfortunately they have a decided
fondness for sprouting seeds, a dainty dish that they exert all their
ingenuity to procure. It is said that they bury acorns and leave them
in the ground until they begin to sprout and have lost their bitter
taste, when they dig them up and eat them.”
“What a bright idea!” Emile exclaimed. “The hard, bitter acorn is
buried in the ground to get mellow, and when the rook thinks it has
stayed there just long enough he has so good a memory he can go and
find it again and dig it up. By that time it is just right to eat, soft
and sweet and a fine feast for Mr. Rook.”
“So far there is nothing to find fault with,” said Uncle Paul. “A
bushel more or less of acorns is a small matter, and I willingly hand
them over to the rooks to dispose of in their curious fashion. But
other sprouting seeds suit them equally well, especially wheat, which
they can so easily procure in winter in the recently sown fields. When
I see a flock of rooks sedately pacing the furrows and plunging their
beaks in here and there where the ground is softened by a thaw, I know
well enough those birds might pretend they were hunting for June-bug
larvæ, but he would be a simpleton indeed who accepted this explanation
at that time of year, when the worms are all too deep in the ground for
the rook’s beak to reach them. It is wheat they are really after, and
as rooks go in very large flocks, which may even darken the sky in
their flight, you can easily understand that such reapers make short
work of their harvest. Nor is that all: in the autumn rooks consume
great quantities of walnuts and chestnuts, and in the spring they dig
up potato fields to obtain the newly planted tubers.”
“Couldn’t they live on dead animals, as the black crow and the raven
do?” asked Louis.
“No; a rook, however hungry, will not touch a dead animal. It must have
seeds and fruit or larvæ and insects; and as it chooses one or the
other of these kinds of food, the rook is our foe or our friend. So
there are two opinions about the bird. Some persons, remembering only
its thefts, would wage a relentless war against it, feeling that each
rook destroyed means a bushel of wheat gained. Others, mindful chiefly
of its destruction of larvæ and insects, maintain that the rook
deserves kind treatment at the farmer’s hands because it rids his
fields of vermin, following the plowman to pick up white worms in the
furrows and plunging its sharp beak into the ground for the grubs of
the June-bug. For these excellent reasons they declare the rook worthy
of our protection.”
“Then which of the two opinions are we to accept?” was Louis’s query.
“To my thinking, neither of them, but something half-way between, as in
the case of the mole. If white worms abound, let us bear with the rook,
as it makes war on these enemies of ours; but if we have no need of its
help, let us chase the bird from our fields. In our warfare on
destructive insects we have two real helpers, the mole and the rook;
but unfortunately we have to weigh their ravages against their
services. Accordingly, let us treat them with forbearance if we have a
worse ill to dread, but rid ourselves of their presence if our fields
are in good condition.
“All the year round the rook lives with its own kind. It goes in flocks
to seek food, and in flocks it chooses its breeding-place. Sometimes a
single oak has a dozen nests, with as many in each of the trees around,
over a large tract of ground. There is great commotion in this aërial
city at the time of nest-building, for rooks are very clamorous and
also much given to stealing from their neighbors. When a young and
inexperienced couple suspend building operations for a moment, to go
and get further material for construction, the neighbors pillage the
half-completed nest; this one carries off a little stick, that one a
blade of grass and some moss, to use in their own work. On their return
the robbed ones are thrown into a terrible passion, accuse this one and
that one, take counsel with friends, and attack the robbers furiously
if the theft has not been cleverly concealed. Experienced couples never
leave the nest unguarded, but one stays and watches while the other
goes for building material.
“The jackdaw or little belfry-crow is all black and about the size of a
pigeon. Like rooks, these birds fly in flocks and nest with their own
kind. High towers, old castles, and the belfries of Gothic churches are
their favorite abode. Their nests, which are made of a few sticks and a
little straw, sometimes are placed each by itself in a hole in the
wall, and sometimes are very near together in huddled groups. The
jackdaw when flying keeps uttering a harsh and piercing cry. It feeds
on insects, worms, larvæ, and fruit, but never on decayed flesh. It
renders us some service by clearing trees of caterpillars, but I
complain of it for hunting the eggs of little birds. Although jackdaws
are always to be found about our old buildings, they nevertheless move
from place to place, usually in large flocks, sometimes of their own
kind exclusively, at other times in company with rooks and mantled
daws.”