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Although there is a numerous sub-colony of crows in the wood behind my house, the headquarters of the corvine army are in the pine grove of the ancient castle grounds, visible from my front rooms.
The "new process" he spoke so confidently about might no doubt be used with advantage in reproducing the coarser metallic reflections on a black plumage, such as we see in the corvine birds; but the glittering garment of the humming-bird, like the silvery lace woven by the Epeira, gemmed with dew and touched with rainbow-coloured light, has never been and never can be imitated by art.
Among several ornithologists, whose opinions have been asked, not a dissenting voice has been heard. The bird is a common crow or a raven, and is one of the most happily executed of the avian sculptures, the nasal feathers, which are plainly shown, and the general contour of the bill being truly corvine.
Xiphoco-laptes uses its sword-like beak as a lever, thrusting it under and forcing up the loose bark; while Dendrornis, with its stout corvine beak, tears the bark off. In the nesting habits the diversity is greatest. Some ground species excavate in the earth like kingfishers, only with greater skill, making cylindrical burrows often four to five feet deep, and terminating in a round chamber.
And he spoke unto all the men and said, 'Study, ye the corvine science. The crows tell me the present, the past, and the future. Proclaiming this in the kingdom, the sage, accompanied by a large number of men, began to observe the misdeeds of all the officers of the king.
One bird bears away the coveted morsel, swearing lustily, and the unsuccessful claimant lets him go in peace. When a jay comes upon a morsel of food too large to be swallowed whole, it flies with it to a tree and holds it under one foot and tears it up with its beak. This is a characteristically corvine habit. The black-throated jay is an exceedingly restless bird; it is always on the move.
"Why, you depraved descendant of a corvine ancestor; you grey-headed old miscreant," exclaimed the blackbird, who had been to look at the prisoner, "what have you done with the foreigner?" "Done," said the daw, "done with the foreigner! No, of course I have not done with the foreigner, any more than the rest of the company have." "But where is he?" chorused several birds; "where is he?"
Among the Cockatoos, the visitor should notice the great white cockatoo from the Indian Archipelago; and here also are the Alexandrine parroquet and the Papuan lory. The Toucans, which inhabit the deep recesses of tropical American forests, here occupy the next case . They are recognised as a branch of the great corvine family.
In a small way it has always existed in certain places, in towns, where the jackdaw is associated in our minds with cathedrals and church towers where he is the "ecclesiastical daw"; but the modern wider toleration is due to the character, the personality, of the bird itself, which is more or less like that of all the members of the corvine family, with the exception of the rook, who always tries his best to be an honest, useful citizen; but it is not precisely the same.
The sparrow, like the poor, we have always with us, and on windy days even the large-sized rook is blown about the murkiness which does duty for sky over London; and on such occasions its coarse, corvine dronings seem not unmusical, nor without something of a tonic effect on our jarred nerves.
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