JABBERING CROW.[59]
Gabbling Crow.

Corvus Jamaicensis.

Cornix Jamaicensis,Briss.
Corvus Jamaicensis,Gmel.

[59] Length 16½ inches, expanse 28, flexure 9½, tail 5¾, rictus 2, tarsus 2, middle toe 1½. Intestine 30 inches; two cæca, situated close together, on the inferior side of the rectum, about ½ inch from cloaca; ⁶⁄₁₀ inch long, slender. Irides greyish hazel.

In the wildest parts of the mountain regions of Jamaica, where the perilous path winds round a towering cone on the one hand, and on the other looks down into a deep and precipitous gully; or where a narrow track, choked up with tree-ferns on which the vertical sun looks only at noon-day, leads through the dark and damp forest to some lonely negro ground, the traveller is startled by the still wilder tones of the Jabbering Crow. So uncouth and yet so articulate, so varied in the inflexions of their tones, are these sounds, that the wondering stranger can with difficulty believe he is listening to the voice of a bird, but rather supposes he hears the harsh consonants, and deep guttural intonations of some savage language. All the Crows are garrulous, and several are capable of tolerable imitations of human speech, but the present is the only example I am aware of, in which the language of man is resembled by a bird in a state of nature. The resemblance, however, is rather general than particular; every one who hears it is struck with its likeness to speech, though he cannot detect any known words: it is the language of a foreigner. One cannot easily convey an idea of the sounds by writing; but the following fragments which the negroes have been able to catch from the learned bird’s own mouth, will give some notion of their character. “Walk fast, crāb! do buckra work.—Cuttacoo[60] better than wallet.” It must not be supposed that these words uniformly represent the sounds; these and similar combinations of harsh consonants and broad vowels, are varied ad infinitum, as are also the tones in which they are expressed. For myself, I have thought them ludicrously like the very peculiar voice of Punch in a puppet-show; others have fancied in them half-a dozen Welshmen quarrelling. These strange sounds are generally poured forth in sentences, of varying length, from the summit of some lofty tree, or in the course of the bird’s passage from one to another.

[60] A cuttacoo is a negro’s little hand-basket.

In some parts of the mountains they are not uncommon, though their loquacity would induce us to think them more numerous than they are, for we rarely see more than two or three at once. They are social, but not gregarious; and much of their time is spent in visiting successively the summits of those trees that tower above the rest of the forest, the Santa-Maria, the bread-nut, the broad-leaf, and the cotton-tree. As these visitations are often performed alone, I imagine that the gabbling cries are calls to their companions, especially as, if another comes within hearing, he is pretty sure to visit his clamorous brother, and enter into noisy conversation with him. After spending a few minutes on one tree, during which they do not, generally, change their position, otherwise than by walking deliberately along the branch, they both wing their way to the next station, not side by side, but one a little behind the other, both calling as they go. The bleached and bare limbs of a dry tree are always selected, when one of the requisite elevation is within range, as affording most fully that which they seem to delight in, an unobstructed prospect. Sometimes they do alight on lower trees, but then they are very wary and suspicious, so that it is a difficult matter to get within shot of one. When out of gun range, which they seem to estimate pretty accurately, they are much more careless of a passing stranger. Their flight is heavy and slow. They scarcely ever desert the solitudes of the mountains; two thousand feet is the lowest limit at which I have known them, with two exceptions. The one is that in certain lofty woods surrounding the extensive morass in Saltspring Pen, near Black river, I have heard the voices of these birds clamorously uttered, in the latter part of November. The other instance occurred behind Pedro Bluff, but little above the level of the sea, where I heard this bird in June.

The food of the Jabbering Crow is principally vegetable. Of several shot in autumn, the stomachs contained various berries, some fleshy, others farinaceous. The stomach is a muscular sac, but not a gizzard. Descending in the early months of the year to the ripening sour sops, on which it feeds, it is then much more approachable, but at the same time more silent. And about the same time, the seed of the bitter wood is ripe, which also attracts him. One of these trees is in the yard of a house at Content, where I occasionally sojourned; this was generally visited at dawn of day, and sometimes in the evening, by the Crows. I have been amused by the intelligence which they manifest in approaching it: a company of two or three will come into the neighbourhood, and alight with much clamour on some tree in the woods, a few rods distant; we hear no further sound, but presently one and another are seen stealing on silent wing to the bitter-wood, where they nibble the berries in all stillness and quiet. I could not help thinking that the noisy and ostentatious alighting on the first tree was but a feint to prevent suspicion, as if they should say, “Here we are, you see; this is the place that we frequent.” And this, I am informed, is not an accidental case, but a habit. The pimento also, which in its green state is eaten by so many of our birds, tempts the Jabbering Crow in February from his forest fastnesses, to the low but dense groves that clothe the mountain brows.

An intelligent person has informed me, that it will take advantage of a small bird’s being entangled in a withe, to kill and eat it; and that when a boy, amusing himself by setting springes for small birds, he has occasionally known them to be taken out of the springe by the Jabbering Crow. These statements, at least as far as the animal appetite is concerned, are in some measure confirmed by an experiment with one I had alive. One day in December, hearing a strange querulous sound proceeding from the top of the woods near me, I sent Sam to find the cause. He ascertained it to proceed from one of two Jabbering Crows, perched side by side on the top of a tree; the vociferous one being evidently young, though in full plumage, and capable of flight, for it was shivering its wings, while with open beak receiving something from the mouth of the other, doubtless its parent. He shot the old one, and slightly wounding it in the wing, brought it to the ground, where it ran so vigorously, that he had difficulty in securing it. It was rather formidable too; for it clutched his hand with its claws so forcibly, as to give pain; and afterwards, as I was holding it, it nipped my finger with the point of its powerful beak, and took the piece out. When turned into a room, it climbed about the various objects, by walking, and taking considerable jumps, striving to gain the highest elevation it could attain, where it sat, moody, but watchful. I presented to it the flesh of one side of the breast of a bird just skinned. He seized it greedily, and, after carrying it about a little, attempted to swallow it. In this he did not succeed without many efforts, as the piece was large: he several times tried to toss it while in his beak, and also drew it out by setting his foot on it, and took it in another position; but seemed to have no power of dividing it.