The genus Corvus, as limited by modern naturalists, comprehends the Raven (C. corax, Lesson), the Carrion Crow (C. corone, Temm.), the Royston Crow (C. cornix, Selby), the Rook (C. frugilegus, Linn.), the Jackdaw (C. monedula, Linn.).
All these species have in many respects the same characteristics, the same aptitude, and the same habits. With the exception of the Raven and Magpie, which live in pairs, the others reside together in large flocks, whether they are in quest of their daily food or roosting at night. They are all possessed of the same intelligence, the same cunning, the same mischievous habits, the same gift of imitation, though in different degrees, and the same provident habit of amassing provisions in secret places. This last peculiarity in tamed birds degenerates into a mania, which leads them to carry off and hide everything that attracts their attention, especially gems and bright articles of metal. The whole group are susceptible of domestication.
The Crows, especially the Raven and the Carrion Crow, are pre-eminently omnivorous. Living or dead flesh, fish cast up on the shore, insects, eggs, fruit, seeds—nothing comes amiss to them. Their depredations are enormous. Thus Ravens, not content with raising a tribute on moles, wood-mice, and leverets, venture into poultry-yards, and without ceremony appropriate chickens, ducklings, &c. Buffon even asserts that in certain countries they fasten upon the backs of buffaloes, and after having put out their eyes, devour them. As for the Carrion Crows, according to Lewis, it is certain that they attack the flocks in Scotch and Irish pastures. Lastly, all Crows delight in digging up newly-sown ground, eating with avidity the germinating seed. On this account the agricultural population are generally their bitterest enemies, destroying them when opportunity offers. In certain parts—Norway, for instance—laws were made ordering their extermination. But this policy was short-sighted: if they did harm, they also did good, for the quantity of noxious grubs and larvæ formerly devoured by them, and consequently kept in check, became most formidable foes to the farmer, and most difficult to overcome. How is it that men will not use their brains—that they actually destroy the animals provided by a bounteous Creator, and whose utility is most conspicuous?
The flesh of the Raven and the Carrion Crow exhales a very bad odour, doubtlessly caused by the quantities of putrid animal matter they consume; consequently, it is unfit for human food. Not so, however, with the Rook. This bird, when taken young, is not only eatable, but by some deemed a delicacy.
Crows possess a vigorous and sustained flight; they have a keen sense of smell, and excellent vision. By exercising these latter qualities they become aware where food is to be obtained, and as they wing their way towards it they constantly utter their cry, as if inviting their companions to join them: this croak, as it is called, is very harsh and dissonant. The plumage being of a sombre funereal black, and the voice so unmusical, have doubtless been the reasons why they have long been considered birds of ill omen. When taken young, they are tamed with great facility, even to permitting them to go at large, for they will neither rejoin their own race nor desert the neighbourhood where they have been kindly treated. True, they may go into the fields to seek for food, but when the increasing shadows predict the approach of night, their familiar resting-place in the house of their protector will be sought. They become much attached to those who take notice of them, and will recognise them even in a crowd. Their audacity and their malice are incredible. When they take an antipathy to any one, they immediately show it. They suffer neither cats nor dogs to approach them, but harass them incessantly, tearing from them their very food. Finally, they choose secret hiding-places, where they store up all that tempts their cupidity or excites their covetousness. They even learn to repeat words and phrases, and to imitate the cries of other animals. These facts are confirmed by numerous anecdotes related by naturalists of undoubted veracity.
Pliny speaks of a Raven which established itself in one of the public places of Rome, and called out the name of each passer-by, from the emperor to the humblest citizen. We have all laughed heartily at the recital of an adventure which happened to an awkward horseman who lost his seat, while a Raven perched on a branch of a tree above him cried out with solemn voice, "How silly!"
Dr. Franklin thus speaks of a Raven of his acquaintance which had been brought up at a country inn:—"It had," he says, "great recollection of persons, and knew perfectly all the coachmen, with whom it lived on the greatest intimacy. With its special friends it took certain innocent liberties, such as mounting on the top of their carriage and riding out with them until it met some other driver with which it was on terms of similarly close friendship, when it would return home." The same Raven had unusual sympathy with dogs in general, and especially those which happened to be lame. These it loaded with the most delicate attentions, keeping them company and carrying them bones to gnaw. This excessive kindness to animals which are rarely in the good graces of Ravens arose from this bird having been reared along with a dog, for which it entertained such strong regard, that it attended it with unremitting assiduity when it had the misfortune to break its leg.
The same author mentions another Raven which was captured in Russia, and came to be confined in the Jardin des Plantes, of Paris. It recognised Dr. Monin when he stopped accidentally before its cage. It had belonged to him ten years before, and when brought before its old master it leaped upon his shoulder and covered him with caresses. The doctor reclaimed his property, and the bird was henceforth an ornament to his house near Blois, where it learnt to address the country-people as "great hogs." Dr. Franklin raised one of these birds himself which showed wonderful powers of imitation. "He called himself Jacob. Sometimes it made such a noise at the bottom of the stairs that you could only imagine it was caused by a party of three or four children quarrelling with great violence; at other times it would imitate the crowing of a cock, the mewing of a cat, the barking of a dog, or the sound produced by a rattle for frightening away birds from a wheat-field; then a silence would ensue; but soon after the crying of a child of two years of age would be mimicked; 'Jacob! Jacob!' its own name, probably it would then call, repeating the cry at first in a grave tone, then with shriller intonation and more vociferously; again another silence; but after a pause, a man seems to knock at the gate; if it is opened, enter Jacob, who runs about the room, and finally mounts on the table. Unfortunately, Jacob was a thief—and that was not his least fault; spoons, knives, forks, even plates, disappeared, with meat, bread, salt, pieces of money—especially if new; he carried off everything, and hid all in some secret hole or corner. A washerwoman of the neighbourhood was accustomed to dry her linen near our window, fixing the clothes on the line with pins; the bird would labour with a perseverance truly wonderful to detach these, the woman chasing him off with bitter maledictions about her fallen linen; but he would only fly over into his own garden for safety, where he would indulge in a few malicious croakings. One day I discovered, under some old timber, Jacob's hiding-place. It was full of needles, pins, and all manner of glittering objects."
Mr. Charles Dickens was partial to keeping Ravens in his youth, and has related some of his experiences in the preface to "Barnaby Rudge." He had two great originals. "The first was in the bloom of his youth, when he was discovered in a humble retreat in London and given to me. He had from the first, as Sir Hugh Evans says of Anne Page, 'good gifts,' which he improved by study and attention in a most extraordinary manner. He slept in a stable—generally on horseback—and so terrified a Newfoundland dog by his preternatural sagacity that he has been known, by the mere superiority of his genius, to walk off unmolested with the dog's dinner from before his face. He was increasing in intelligence and precocity when, in an evil hour, his stable was newly painted. He observed the workmen closely, saw that they were careful of their pigments, and immediately burned to possess some of them. On their going to dinner, he ate up all they left behind, consisting of a pound or two of white-lead. Alas! this youthful indiscretion terminated in death.
"Whilst yet inconsolable for the loss, another friend of mine," adds Mr. Charles Dickens, "discovered an older and more gifted Raven at a village inn, which he prevailed upon the landlord to part with for a consideration. The first act of this sage was to administer to the effects of his predecessor, by disinterring all the cheese and halfpence he had buried in the garden—a work of immense labour and research, to which he devoted all the energies of his mind. When he had achieved this task, he applied himself to the acquisition of stable language, in which he soon became such an adept that he would perch outside any window and drive imaginary horses all day long, with great skill in language. Perhaps I never saw him at his best, for his former master sent his duty with him, and said, 'if I wished the bird to come out very strong, to be so good as show him a drunken man;' which I never did, having (unfortunately) none but sober people at hand. But I could hardly have respected him more, whatever the stimulating influence of this sight might have been. He had not the least respect for me, I am sorry to say, in return, or for anybody but the cook, to whom he was attached—but, I fear, only as a policeman might have been. Once I met him unexpectedly, about half a mile off, walking down the middle of the public street, attended by a pretty large crowd, and spontaneously exhibiting the whole of his accomplishments. His gravity under this trying ordeal I never can forget, nor the extraordinary gallantry with which, refusing to be brought home, he defended himself behind a pump until overpowered by numbers. It may have been that he was too bright a genius to live long, or it may have been that he took something pernicious into his bill, and thence into his maw—which is not improbable, seeing he new-pointed the greater part of the garden-wall by digging out the mortar, broke countless squares of glass by scraping away the putty all round the frames, and tore up and swallowed in splinters the greater part of a wooden staircase of six steps as well as the landing—but after some three years he was taken ill, and died before the kitchen fire. He kept his eye to the last upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly turned over on his back with the sepulchral cry of 'Cuckoo.'"