Continuing from Ted Hughes’ comments quoted in the previous chapter, there are some comparisons to be made between the two poets with regard to the natural world. The collection Crow which was published in 1973, introduced one of Hughes’ most formidable creations, the Crow of the title, based on the common bird but invested with a chilling bloody-mindedness and absolutism which give the creature a demonic force. In 1962 MacCaig wrote ‘Solitary Crow’ which in certain ways provides a rough prototype for Hughes'much more elaborate invention:

The anarchist in the phrase ‘sardonic anarchist’ is reminiscent of Shelle's The Mask of Anarchy where the powers-that-be are a law unto themselves and their law is inimical to any notion of fairness or communal justice, their might is right. Hughes pushed this idea much harder; the humour in Crow is much grimmer than sardonic, and the violence much more pervasive. Furthermore, when Hughes tries to understand the animalness of an animal, he allows himself liberties, liberties with which MacCaig would be uncomfortable. In ‘Thrushes’, for example, Hughes presents the birds as programmed killers (if only of worms) and contrasts their conscienceless dedication with the dithering and moral uncertainty of humans (apart from geniuses). Hughes seems, in the realised intensity of the poetry, to take some sadistic relish in the birds’ lack of scruple. MacCaig, for the most part, takes a more smiling pleasure in his animals.