A SUBURBAN CROW.
Rooks, and the crow tribe in general, are probably the cleverest of all birds, but perhaps too much intelligence is sometimes attributed to them. It was said, for example, after the recent gales, as after many another gale, that they seldom or never chose a tree for their nest if it was likely to fall. A correspondent from Peckham Rye Park sends me the following very contrary instance : " In one of the victims of the storm, a pair of carrion crows built their nest during the past season and strangely enough this was the only tree that fell in that particular avenue: The birds have reared their brood successfully and now bring them in the early morning to forage on and around our houses, although there is a wide- spread impression that they invariably avoid human habita- tions." As a matter of fact, no bird has been more widely encouraged by urban conditions than the carrion crows. They now abound in the suburbs, and prove great scavengers. I once watched a particularly clever crow picking fragments off the London Thames in imitation of the gulls. He did it much more neatly than the starlings, which also have acquired this unnatural knack merely by imitation.
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