(A. N.)
[1] As bearing upon this question may be mentioned the fact that the crow of Australia (C. australis) is divisible into two forms or races, one having the irides white, the other of a dark colour. It is stated that they keep apart and do not intermix.
CROWBERRY, or Crakeberry, the English name for a low-growing heath-like shrub, found on heaths and rocks in Scotland, Ireland and mountainous parts of England. It is known botanically as Empetrum nigrum, and has slender, wiry, spreading branches covered with short, narrow, stiff leaves, the margins of which are recurved so as to form a hollow cylinder concealing the hairy under face of the leaf—a device to avoid excessive loss of water from the leaf under the exposed conditions in which the plant grows. The minute flowers are succeeded by black, edible, berry-like fruits, one-fourth to one-third of an inch in diameter. The plant has a wide distribution, occurring in suitable localities throughout the north temperate zone, and on the Andes of South America.
| Fig. 1.—Welsh Crwth, 18th century. |
CROWD, Crouth, Crowth (Welsh crwth; Fr. crout; Ger. Chrotta, Hrotta), a medieval stringed instrument derived from the lyre, characterized by a sound-chest having a vaulted back and an open space left at each side of the strings to allow the hand to pass through in order to stop the strings on the finger-board. The Welsh crwth, which survived until the end of the 18th century, is best represented by a specimen of that date preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and described and illustrated by Carl Engel.[1] The instrument consists of a rectangular sound-chest 22 in. long, 9½ in. wide and 2 in. deep; the body is scooped out of a single block, the flat belly being glued on. Right through the sound-chest on each side of the finger-board is the characteristic open space left for the hand to pass through. There are two circular sound-holes; the left foot of the flat bridge, which lies obliquely across the belly, passes through the left sound-hole and rests inside on the back of the instrument. Six catgut strings fastened to a tail-piece are wound round pegs at the top of the crwth; four of these strings lie over the sound-board and bridge, and are set in vibration by means of a bow, while the two others, used as drones and stretched across the left-hand aperture, are twanged by the thumb of the left hand. The shape and shallowness of the bridge make it impossible to sound a single string with the bow; the arrangement of the strings suggests that they were intended to be sounded in pairs. The instrument is tuned thus:
At the beginning of the 19th century, William Bingley[2] heard a Welsh peasant playing national airs on a crwth strung as follows:—