I will not venture further into the meaning of
this singular appellation given to a tavern.

Royston is a goodly and comfortable town, just inside the eastern
boundary of Hertfordshire. It has its full share of half-legible
and interesting antiquities, including the ruins of a royal palace,
a cave, and several other broken monuments of the olden time, all
festooned with the web-work of hereditary fancies, legends, and
shreds of unravelled history dyed to the vivid colors of variegated
imagination. It also boasts and enjoys a great, breezy common,
large enough to hold such another town, and which few in the kingdom
can show. Then, if it cannot cope with Glastonbury in showing, to
the envious and credulous world, a thorn-tree planted by Joseph of
Arimathaea, and blossoming always at Christmas, it can fly a bird of
greater antiquity, which never flapped its wings elsewhere, so far
as I can learn. It may be the lineal descendant of Noah's raven
that has come down to this particular community without a cross with
any other branch of the family. It is called "The Royston Crow,"
and is a variety of the genus which you will find in no other
country. It is a great, heavy bird, larger than his colored
American cousin, and is distinguished by a white back. Indeed, seen
walking at a distance, he looks like our Bobolink expanded to the
size of a large hen-hawk. To have such a wild bird all to
themselves, and of its own free will, notwithstanding the length and
power of its wings, and the force of centrifugal attractions, is a
distinction which the good people of this favored town have good
reason to appreciate at its proper value. Nor are they insensible
to the honor. The town printer put into my hands a monthly
publication called "THE ROYSTON CROW," containing much interesting
and valuable information. It might properly have embraced a chapter
on entomology; but, perhaps, it would have been impolitic for the
personal interests of the bird to have given wide publicity to facts
in this department of knowledge. For, after all, there may exist in
the neighborhood certain special kinds of bugs and other insects
which lie at the foundation of his preference for the locality.

The next day I again faced northward, and walked as far as Caxton, a
small, rambling village, which looked as if it had not shaved and
washed its face, and put on a clean shirt for a shocking length of
time. It was dark when I reached it; having walke