CROW STORIES

There's a repeated story of the crow raised by a British bird behaviorist. One day, as the woman was about to walk her dog, she suddenly remembered something she had to do. Dropping the leash, she went into the house. Upon returning, she found that the crow had the end of the leash in its mouth, and was calmly taking Fido for a walk around the yard

HEIST

Italy’s Carabinieri police are on the trail of a crow that snatched a half-million lire ($238) from a man who was withdrawing money from an automated teller machine in Sicily. As the bank notes emerged from the machine in Pace del Mela, the bird swooped onto the man and snatched the bills away before he was aware of the assault. La Repubblica reported that staff at the bank confirmed the 40-year-old accountant’s story. Police have theorized that the bird was trained to commit the crime and reported that a man with a pet crow had recently been seen in the area. Distributed by: The Los Angeles Times Syndicate ©2001 Earth Environment Service. Submitted by Corvi in Anaheim, Calif.

For Tlingit Indians (North-West of the Pacific), the crow is the main divine character. He organises the world, gives civilisation and culture, creates and frees the sun.

For HaХda indians (North-western coast of the Canada), the crow will steal the sun from the sky's master, to give it to the earth's people. Raven has also a magic canoe : he can make it change its size, from the pine needle size, to big enough to contain the whole universe.

In North America, crow is the personnification of the Supreme Being. When he flaps his wings he creates the wind, the thunder and the lightning.

In Mithra's cult, crow can fight evil spells.

Scandinavians legends show two crows, perched on Odin's seat : Hugi, the Spirit, and Munnin, the Memory. They symbolize the principle of creation. In the same way, these birds are the companions of Wotan ("the God with the crows").

The crow was sacred for the Celts. He was associated to the creation of Lugdunum (Lyon), city of the God Lug. Lug is the great solar god. He has the form of a crow and is assimilated to Apollo.

The crow is also in the Bible: he brings bead to man, alone in the desert.Prophet Elie, Saint Paul hermit, Saint Antoine... Saint Vincenthad been defended by crows against the attack of carnivores; the crow is also seen at Saint BenoФt's feet and in Saint Oswald's hands. Here, he symbolizes divine providence. He is also linked to Saints Boniface and Meinrad : their two tame crows allowed to find their corpses.

The crow has also a role in the asiatic mythology : in China and in Japan, he shows love and filial gratitude.According to chinese legends, ten red crows with three paws flew away from the East Blackberry Tree to bring light to the world. But they brought an unbearable heat to the Earth. Yi The Good Archer killed nine of them, and saved the world. The last Crow is now in the Sun.

So the crow is a solar symbol. He represents the creative principle.

Guide and messenger of the Gods

The major meaning of this black bird is to be a guide and the Gods' messenger.

In Black Africa, the crow warns men that dangers are menacing them. The crow is their guide and a protector spirit.

For Mayas, he is the messenger of the God of lightning and thunder.

In Celtic civilisation, he has prophetic functions. Bodb, Goddess of the war, takes the form of a raven to observe the battlefields. The crows' fly and cawings told the future. The crow was also linked to Bran, God of the sailors (bran means crow in gaelic) : the sailors had crows on their boats. They released them at sea. They flied in the direction of the earth. The same idea is in the Bible (after the flood Noah released first a crow),in India and in Norway.

In Greece the crow foretold the future : a raven stood near the Pythie of Delphes during her prediction. It is generally said in Greece that the white crow guides messengers. This function of messenger of the Gods (especially Apollo's messenger), may have its origin in a greek legend. Coronis was unfaithful to Apollo, and a crow informed him. According to Ovide, the crow was originally white. Apollo made him become black to punish him for bringing bad news. Apollo even took a form of crow to guide Santorin's people to Cyrena. And two crows showed Alexander the Great the road to Amon's sanctuary.

Hugi and Munnin (Thought and Memory), are Odin's companions. In scandinavian mythology, they travel all over the world and come back to tell Odin all the events that happens on earth.

In the mithraic cult, Sol(the God Sun) entrust the crow with telling Mithra to sacrifice the bull.

In Japan, crows are also divine messengers, and in China they are the faerie queen Hsi-Wang-Mu's messengers. They also bring her food and are a good omen.

So we can say that the crow is a creator,a guide and a devine messenger. He also guides souls through their last travel and goes through the darkness without moving away from the road.

HOUSTON CHRONICLE

TOOLMAKING TAKES FLIGHT

CROW’S ABILITY TO FASHION HOOK STUNS SCIENTISTS

BY Randolph E. Schmid

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Millions of frustrated farmers and gardeners can attest that crows are smart. But at least one - Betty by name - is at the head of the class. She not only knows how to use items as tools, she makes her own.

Confronted by a small bucket of food inside a pipe - in a lab at England’s Oxford University - Betty figured out how to bend a piece of wire into a hook and retrieve what she wanted.

And she repeated the success over and over, using the wire to pull the bucket up by its handle. Her exploits are reported in today’s issue of the journal Science.

"We were delighted and extremely surprised, " said Alex Kacelnik, who teaches at Oxford and at the Science College of Berlin.

Kacelnik and his colleagues were trying to determine if the crows, who have been known to use twigs to pick things up in the wild, could choose the right tool to retrieve food.

They did not expect the birds to make their own tools.

Richard Bands, an ornithologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, agreed that it was surprising for a bird to make a tool.

Banks, an expert on North American crows said he had solutions to similar problems.

"There is no doubt that the tool-manufacturing abilities of these animals have evolved independently of that of primates, and this gives us a lever to understand what makes intelligent solutions an advantage."

The Oxford researchers were working with a species of crow known as Corvus moneduloides, a type that lives on the island of New Caledonia in the Pacific.

Two crows - Betty and Abel - were presented with a small bucket of food down inside a tube and two pieces of wire, one hooked and one straight.

"Our surprise came when, in the fifth trail, the make stole the hooked wire from the female and took it away. Far from giving up, she then picked the remaining straight wire and bent it herself," Kacelnik explained.

"To make sure of our observation we then offer repeatedly only the straight wire, and she unfailingly did the same trick from her by brute force.

"This may in fact be an intelligent - if unpleasant - strategy, and it does not mean that he would not be able to achieve other solutions, given a different motivation, " Kacelnik said.

He has seen American crows using materials as tools.

Some African chimpanzees have been observed selecting and using stones to open nuts, and monkeys are know to use sticks to fish edible ants and termites out of their nests.

"Toolmaking and tool use has always been considered one of the diagnostics of a superior intelligence. Now a bird is shown to have greater sophistication than many closer relatives of us humans," Kacelnik commented.

"People expect apes to be the pinnacle of intelligence in the animal kingdom because the are our closest relatives, but nature may have reached different ideas.

"Both birds had used hooks before," he noted. "In fact, these crows do use hoods made out of twigs in the wild."

Able was able to get food once using the straight wire, but never did nay bending on his own. However, once Betty managed to get the food using her bent wires, Able stole some of it from her.

Does this mean girl crows are smarter than boys?

"Unfortunately, we cannot say this, " Kacelnik responded.

"Able is older and stronger than Betty, " he explained. "so while she often shows an interest in solving tasks, he will wait until she get the food and then steal it."