HABITATION.--This species only inhabits the wooded parts of a country; it there builds its nest on the highest trees. Its eggs, from three to five in number, are of a dirty green, streaked with olive brown. If the young ones be taken in order to instruct them, they must be removed on the twelfth day after bursting the shell, when they have only half their feathers. They are fed on meat, snails, worms, and bread soaked in milk; after a little time they will eat bread, meat, and any refuse from the table. In its wild state the raven eats leverets, birds' eggs, mice, young goslings, chickens, and snails, and even pears, cherries, and other fruit; this shows us that it is rather hurtful as well as useful.
Corvus corone, LINNÆUS; La Corneille, BUFFON; Die Schwarze Krähe, BECHSTEIN.
It only differs from the preceding in its size, and in the tail being rounded instead of wedge-shaped. Its whole length is eighteen inches. Its plumage is black, with some tints of violet on the upper part of the body.
PECULIAR QUALITIES.--The carrion crow is one of the commonest birds; in the groves, which it likes best, it congregates in such numbers that twenty nests have been built on the same tree[18]; the eggs are spotted with grey or olive brown on a green ground. The young may be taken from the nest in the month of March, or even earlier if the winter be mild they are treated and fed like the former species. The carrion crow is even more easily tamed, for I have seen old ones, which have been taught to go and come, and others in their wild state, which have regularly fed in the yard going in the spring to breed in the woods, and returning at the beginning of the winter to pass that season in a domestic state. Insects, worms, mice, fruit, and grain form its principal food in its wild state.
MODE OF TAKING.--The easiest and most usual method is with paper cones, at the bottom of which is put a bit of meat, and bird-lime on the inner edges. It may also be caught with lime twigs placed in the yard, or before the house, on horse dung and among scattered grain.
Corvus Cornix, LINNÆUS; La Corneille Mantelée, BUFFON; Die Nebelkrähe, BECHSTEIN.
This species, a little larger than the preceding, is grey, with the head, throat, wings, and tail black. In the winter it is found over almost all Europe, but during summer it inhabits more northern parts, where it builds in groves and orchards near open fields: its eggs are bright green streaked and spotted with brown.
