A few years since, a pair of sparrows, which had built in the thatch roof of a house at Poole, were observed to continue their visits to the nest long after the time when the young birds take flight. This unusual circumstance continued throughout the year; and in the winter, a gentleman who had all along observed them, determined on investigating the cause. He therefore mounted a ladder, and found one of the young ones detained a prisoner, by means of a piece of string, or worsted, which formed part of the nest, having become accidentally twisted round its leg. Being thus incapacitated from procuring its own sustenance, it had been fed by the continued exertions of its parents.
An old man belonging to the neighborhood of Glasgow, who was a soldier in his youth, mentions, that he became first reconciled to a foreign country, by observing a sparrow hopping about just as he had seen them do at home. "Are you here too, freen?" said he to the sparrow. He does not add that it returned a verbal answer to his exclamatory question; but he could not help fancying that it looked assent, as if it understood he was an exile, and wished him to take a lesson of resignation to circumstances.
THE CROW.
Miscellaneous Anecdotes.—In the year 1816, a Scotch newspaper states that a common crow, perceiving a brood of young chickens, fourteen in number, under the care of a parent hen, picked up one of them; but a young lady, seeing what had happened, suddenly pulled up the window, and calling out loudly, the plunderer dropped his prey. In the course of the day, however, the audacious and calculating robber, accompanied by thirteen others, came to the place where the chickens were, and each seizing one, got clearly off with the whole brood at once.
An instance of sagacity in the crow is told by Dr. Darwin. He had a friend, on the northern coast of Ireland, who noticed above a hundred crows at once, feeding on mussels. The plan they took to break them was, each to lift one in its bill, and ascend about thirty or forty yards in the air, and from thence let the mussels drop upon stones; thus they secured the flesh of the animal inhabitants.
During the war between Augustus Cæsar and Mark Antony, when the world looked with anxiety which way Fortune would turn herself, an indigent man in Rome, in order to be prepared to take advantage of whichever way she might incline, determined on making a bold hit for his own advancement; he had recourse, therefore, to the following ingenious expedient: He applied himself to the training of two crows with such diligence, that he taught them at length to pronounce distinctly, the one a salutation to Cæsar, and the other to Antony. When Augustus returned conqueror, the man went out to meet him, with one of the crows perched on his hand, which every little while exclaimed, Salve, Cæsar, Victor, Imperator! Augustus, greatly struck, and delighted with so novel a circumstance, purchased the bird of the man for a sum which immediately raised him to opulence.
There is a kind of crow, which is seen in England in flocks, called the hooded crow. It is said that one or two hundred of them will sometimes meet together as if upon some fixed plan; and at these times, a few of them sit with drooping heads, and others look very grave, as if they were judges, while others still are very bustling and noisy. In about an hour, the meeting breaks up, when one or two are generally found dead; and it has been supposed that this meeting is a sort of trial of some crows who have behaved ill, and who are punished in this severe way for their bad behavior.
THE RAVEN.
Miscellaneous Anecdotes.—This bird is very hardy, crafty, and wary. He is easily domesticated, and is very mischievous, readily catching up any thing glittering, and hiding it. There is a well-authenticated fact of a gentleman's butler having missed a great many silver spoons, and other articles, without being able to detect the thief for some time; at last he observed a tame raven with one in his mouth, and watched him to his hiding-place, where he found more than a dozen.
A young raven, fifteen months old, was taken from the nest when very young, and brought up by a keeper with his dogs. It was so completely domesticated that it would go out with the keeper, and when it took its flight farther than usual, at the sound of the whistle it would return and perch upon a tree or a wall, and watch all his movements. It was no uncommon thing for it to go to the moors with him, and to return—a distance of ten or twelve miles. It would even enter a village with the keeper, partake of the same refreshment, and never leave him until he returned home.