Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/136

120 ground before rain. But that is as boys gather black-berries, or trespass in a field and eat raw turnips. Crows will not look to nature for a living. A "wild" Crow, living in a forest or field and foraging for itself, is a thing I have not seen.

Of course I am referring to the common, or "grey-necked," Crow. The black Crow, which Jerdon calls the Indian Corby, is different. Though it often haunts our back premises in company with the others and snatches a share of anything that may be going, it is still a wild bird, and you will often find it at home in the jungles, far from all human habitations. It is very abundant on shady country roads, feeding on the fruit of the banian tree or the peepul, and when the traveller sits down in a cool place and lights a fire to cook his mid-day meal, the black Crows see the smoke from afar and come to wait upon him. They kill lizards and spit frogs on their black beaks, and I am afraid that eggs and young birds form no small part of their diet. Compared with the grey-necked Crow, the black species is not common in Bombay, but it gets commoner as you go south and in some places quite replaces the other. It is known to science as Corvus macrorhynchus. Macrorhynchus is a formidable-looking word, but only means Big Beak. The common grey-necked Crow has got the name of Corvus splendens; whether from the glossy blackness of its wings, or the splendour of its impudence, I will not pretend to say. It was once more aptly named Corpus impudicus, and one could wish that name had remained.

Crows are fond of sleeping together. Near almost every village there is a large tree which is the dormitory, and to this they gather from long distances as