Feb. 21—A correspondent has written to me suggesting that the expression "as the crow flies" is quite misleading in its accepted mean ing, and quotes me as stating that crows spend a lot of time in "weaving exercises" on their way back and forth between roosting and feeding grounds: he further suggests that "as the Magpie flies" would be more correct since this bird makes a straight dash from point to point. All this is correct to some extent, but there are many points to be thought of in a case of this sort. When I wrote of "weaving exercises" etc. I was writing of Rooks which are a kind of crow, but are possibly not the particular crow meant by the old saying. My guess is that the word "crow" was picked on merely because crows—big, black. noisy birds. easily seen and quickly identified, are about the best known birds in the world: the origins! expression
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.