Crow

“ If you ever saw a crow with a king-bird after him, you will get an image of a dull speaker and a lively listener. The bird in sable plumage flaps heavily along his straight-forward course, while the other sails round him, over him, under him, leaves him, comes back again, tweaks out a black feather, shoots away once more, never losing sight of him, and finally reaches the crow's perch at the same time the crow does, having cut a perfect labyrinth of loops and knots and spirals while the slow fowl was painfully working from one end of his straight line to the other. ”

“ It wouldn’t be long before fall would be here, I thought, and that lonely old crow would join about five hundred of his black-feathered friends and spend half the day everyday, for a while, cawing and cawing in his hoarse voice, keeping it up and keeping it up, hour after hour in the bare trees. One of the dreariest things a farm boy ever sees in the autumn, is a forlorn-looking crow flapping his sad wings above the frosty cornfields. ”

“ The crow’s nest and mast, shining in the sun, go swinging to and fro across the sky—now she puts her nose down into the blue, pleasantly, and rises and our old level horizon of the ice days is away below us as our bows point to the skies—right and left we roll and we swing her south-east, for habitable land, for Trömso and Trondhjem and green trees growing and new fresh food; for even a few months in the ice with food getting rather stale makes us hanker a little after a new kitchen. ”

“ Travelling through the woods, perhaps on the ground, perhaps aloft, from tree to tree, it hears a cock crow, and its heart swells as it remembers the savoury food on which it regaled itself last summer in the neighbouring farm-yard. ”

“ Not a bird flits but a hungry crow now and then, in quest of prey. The fruit trees exhibit a mournful picture, broken down by the weight of the snow; whilst the running of sleighs and the jingle of bells assures us that all nature does not slumber. ”

“ If we have an eye for the picturesque, we place a certain value upon the broad, strong dash of color in the landscape, given by a flock of crows flapping their course above a corn-field, against an October sky; but the practical eye of the farmer looks only for his gun in such a case. To him the crow is an unmitigated nuisance, all the more maddening because it is clever enough to circumvent every means devised for its ruin. Nothing escapes its rapacity; fear is unknown to it. ”

“ Wherefore the gray crow went first to the bait, and Pig Head, half-dead with cold and peering out of a tiny peep-hole, called down blessings of a weak and watery nature upon his black head. And well he might, for if the gray crow had shied at the bait, then everybody else would have taken his tip. ”

“ Surely a night-clerk in crow-town has an easy task. There need be no prolonged hammering on the door of the guest who would be called early. One tap is sufficient. I had hoped to stand beneath that tree and sight my crow in the gray of dawn, see him yawn with that prodigious black beak after he had withdrawn it from under his wing, then stretch one wing and one leg, as birds do, look the world over, catch sight of me and go off at a great pace, shouting a hasty warning to the world in general. ”

“ A crow parent on a foraging expedition is a most unwelcome visitor to the farmer with young chickens, or the bird-lover interested in the fate of nestlings. Yet when I saw the persecuted creature in the character of provider for four hungry and ever clamorous mouths, to whose wants she is as alive as we are to the wants of our babies, I took a new view of crow depredations, and could not see why her children should not have a chicken or a bird for breakfast, as well as ours. Poor hunted crow, against whom every man's hand is raised! ”

“ One real service I have been able to render the robins—in throwing stones at the crows. The crow has a sleek and clerical exterior, but inside he is as black-hearted a villain as wears feathers. He is a killer and eater of other people’s offspring. ”

“ For, as you no doubt have heard, a crow thinks no more of helping himself to an egg of a wild bird than we [Pg 104] do of visiting the nests of tame birds, such as hens and geese and turkeys, and taking the eggs they lay. Of course, it would not occur to a crow that he didn't have a perfect right to take such food for himself and his young as he could find in his day's hunting. Indeed, it is not unlikely that, if a crow did any real thinking about the matter, he might decide that robins and meadowlarks were his chickens anyway. ”

“ The crow strikes my bell, between the mouths of my stone lions. See you not? The crow came as is its habit, to pick morsels of food out of the mouth of the lion. And the lions were not lions. I deceived the crow. Let a sheep be killed: and place some meat in the lions' mouths, that the crow may find its meal. ”

“ Even the blackest of them all, the crow,
Renders good service as your man-at-arms,
Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail,
And crying havoc on the slug and snail. ”

“ In fact, the crow is a courtly, fine-mannered bird. Birds of prey will rend one another over their food; even buzzards will make some show of mauling one another with their wings; but I have yet to see anything of the kind with that gentle freebooter, the crow. Yet suspicion is his dominant trait. Anything that looks like design puts him on his guard. The simplest device in a cornfield usually suffices to keep him away. He suspects a trap. His wit is not deep, but it is quick, and ever on the alert.
One of our natural history romancers makes the crows flock in June. ”

“ The farmers know it to their sorrow, the bird's champions reluctantly admit it, the crow himself goes openly into the field, both in winter and summer, with no intent to conceal his intentions. And yet this universally acknowledged habit will bear investigation. ”

“ “And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I’m a crow, especially when I stand a’top of this pine tree here. Caw! caw! caw! caw! caw! caw! Ain’t I a crow? And where’s the scare-crow? There he stands; two bones stuck into a pair of old trowsers, and two more poked into the sleeves of an old jacket.” ”

“ And I have observed repeatedly, at different times and in different localities, that when I use the distress-call of a young crow as a decoy, the first to appear over the tree-tops is a female. This is the common rule, with occasional exceptions to point or emphasize it. But whenever I clamor like a crow that has discovered an owl, or send forth a senselessly excited hawing, almost invariably the first crow to come whooping over is a long-winged and glossy old male. ”

“ The crow indeed is a sharp fellow in more ways than one. He is an expert at tricks. Here is one told of the Indian crow.
A dog—a fox-terrier of good training—was one day gnawing a chicken bone on the veranda when two crows saw him at his meal and lighted on the veranda railing, where they began to croak. The very sight of a crow is usually enough to make a dog forget his breakfast and fly at the bird ”

“ The crow has fine manners. He always has the walk and air of a lord of the soil. One morning I put out some fresh meat upon the snow near my study window. Presently a crow came and carried it off and alighted with it upon the ground in the vineyard. While he was eating of it, another crow came, and, alighting a few yards away, slowly walked up to within a few feet of his fellow, and stopped. I expected to see a struggle over the food, as would have been the case with domestic fowls or animals. ”

“ If the gray, or hoodie, crow—always remembering that crows, gray or black, are servants of the Devil, just as ravens are, and very cunning—if the crow, I say, thought that here was food without some horrible form of hidden death lurking behind it, then the chances were the gray crow was right. ”

“ Nature has few birds or animals upon her varied list with which we would find fault, but the crow,—well, having nothing to say in its favor, let us drop the subject. Parrots, paroquets, tiny indigo birds, pedorevas, and robins,—yes, these are all in harmony with mingled fragrance and sunshine, but the coal-black crow, with his bad habits and hoarse bird-profanity, bah! ”

“ As a grub eater, the crow deserves much praise. The crow is the scavenger of the bird family, eating anything and everything, whether it is sweet or carrion. The only quarrel I have with the crow is because it destroys the eggs and young birds.
Mr. Lockwood described the experience of a neighbor who planted corn after tarring it. This seemed to prevent the ravages of the crows until the second hoeing, when the corn was up some eighteen inches, at which time the crows came in and pulled nearly an acre clean.
Crows, said Dr. Riggs, have no crop, like a great many carnivorous birds. ”

“ THE CROW'S CHILDREN A HUNTSMAN, bearing his gun a-field,
Went whistling merrily,
When he heard the blackest of black crows
Call out from a withered tree:—
"You are going to kill the thievish birds,
And I would, if I were you;
But you must not touch my family.
Whatever else you do."
"I'm only going to kill the birds
That are eating up my crop;
And if your young ones do such things,
Be sure they'll have to stop."
"O," said the crow, "my children
Are the best ones ever born
There isn't one among them all
Would steal a grain of corn." ”

“ The crow, among other kinds of food, feeds upon nuts. If these prove too hard for his beak to break, the crow flies to a great height, and then lets them fall again and again upon the stones and tiles beneath, until at last the shell is cracked, and the bird is able to open them. The crow is a bird of a very ill-omened garrulity, though it has been highly praised by some. ”

“ Another day, when some clamoring crows would pay no attention to my call, I stole through the woods in their direction till I reached the edge of an upland pasture, where a score of the birds were deeply intent on some affair of their own. On the ground, holding the center of the stage, was a small crow that either could not or would not fly, and was acting very queerly. At times he would [54] stand drooping, while a circle of crows waited for his next move in profound silence. ”

“ The same is true of the crow guests at the Pasture Pines Hotel. I had the{25} pleasure of waking them early there this morning, incidentally, and vicariously, waking all crow-town. Last night, just as the last tint of amber was fading from the sunset sky, letting a yellow-green evening star come through, almost like a first daffodil, a crow slipped bat-wise across the amber and dropped into a certain pine to roost. ”

“ Two or three pairs of hostile crows with their feathers standing up around their necks, engaged in deadly combat on the floor over a silver spoon or a tooth-brush; half a dozen perched upon every available chair; an unfortunate lizard with a crow at each end of it, getting whirled wildly round the room, each crow thinking he had the best right to it; crows everywhere, hopping about on the table, and drinking from the bath; crows perched on the window-sill, and more crows about to come, and each crow doing all in his power to make the greatest possible noise. ”

“ If the tongue of a goose be cut out when the fowl is alive, and laid on the breast of a man or woman when asleep, he or she will confess every sin of life. When a man carried the heart of a male crow, and his wife the heart of a female crow, they lived in peace and happiness. It was customary with the good housewives of England, on placing eggs in a nest for incubation, to swing a lighted candle over them, as a charm to prevent hawks, crows, and other birds of prey, flying away with the young birds hatched from the eggs. ”

“ Any one who hears a crow caw should shatter his teeth three times and blow; and two brooms together will bring joy and sorrow at the same time, as a birth and a death on the same day. "Crows' feet" on the face are called "fishes' tails," and in young men mean what the widower's peak is supposed to signify with us. ”

“ There is another way in which the crows' love of variety is manifest, though in a much more dignified way. Occasionally a flock may be surprised sitting about in the trees, deeply absorbed in watching a performance—generally operatic—by one of their [Pg 107] number. The crow's chief note is the hoarse haw, haw with which everybody is familiar, and which seems capable of expressing everything, from the soft chatter of going to bed in the pine tops to the loud derision with which he detects all ordinary attempts to surprise him. ”

“ One cannot but admire his strength and his absolute fearlessness, nor fail to be amused at his cleverness and his insolent bravado. Two or three crows, cawing hoarsely, will people a woodland in winter; while a flock, winging its way to the naked March woods, will cause a thrill of joy and expectancy, in spite of the knowledge that the advent of these black marauders means eternal vigilance to long-suffering farmers.
Dr. Sylvester D. Judd at Marshall Hall, Maryland, made an exhaustive study of the crow’s food habits. ”

“ The crow is thought by many people to be the most knowing bird in America, and he is the one who has been most abused. He does some mischief, it is true, but he does a great deal more good. So say the officers of the Department who have looked into his food. ”

“ Saying these words, the Crow flew above the trees of the forest and with his beak and his claws killed all the game to be found. In fact, during one hundred and fifty days he caught one million eight hundred and sixty thousand seven hundred and twenty-six animals and birds, squirrels, moorcocks, pheasants, and quails. ”

“ Now for nearly a year that crow has been hobbling about on one whole and one half wing, trusting to [Pg 34] luck to escape his enemies, until he can get three new feathers to take the places of those that are missing. “Well, why doesn’t he get them?” you ask. If you were that crow, how would you get them? Can a crow, by taking thought, add three new feathers to his wing? ”