ITS PREDATORY HABITS.

Throughout the Plays we meet with frequent allusions to the crow, and its partiality for carrion. In the fifth act of Cymbeline a scene is laid in a field between the British and Roman camps, where the following dialogue takes place:—

British Captain. Stand! who’s there?

Posthumus. A Roman,

Who had not now been drooping here, if seconds

Had answer’d him.

British Captain. Lay hands on him; a dog!

A leg of Rome shall not return to tell

What crows have peck’d them here.”

Cymbeline, Act v. Sc. 3.