A MYSTERY OF MADRAS.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1426, 13 November 1923, Page 3

A MYSTERY OF MADRAS.

"CALLING THE CROWS." How many people with an acquaintance with India and the East have seen the calling of the crows as one of the tricks of itinerant juggler. A correspondent in the London Times gives an interesting account of suc!h an incident, novel even to a collector who had spent many years in the Indian Civil Service. A snake charmer at a tiny place 30 miles from Madras — the benighted presidency—had been refused permission to do the usual snake tricks, and then asked if he should call the crows. " Certainly," said the collector, " for there is none here." For about ten minutes there was a curious whietling and calling, and then the birds began to come, first in twos and threes, and tlhen more and more till the place was black with crows. The charmer asked if this was enough, or should he call more crows. "Enough," was the answer. Ordered to send them away, he did, and within five minutes there was not a crow in eight. The Indian crow is one of the sights of the country—a nuisance, but valuable as a scavenger, and possessing considerably more cunning than its English brother. The sight of a gun scares them, but they move off to a distance only juet out of range.