File:Bits of bird life (1895) (14566036477).jpg

Identifier: bitsofbirdlife00unse (find matches)
Title: Bits of bird life
Year: 1895 (1890s)
Authors:
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: Boston, Mass. : Perry Mason & Co.

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s, and see itsmembers come rushing over the same grove where a weekbefore they were fooled in the same way. Sometimes, indeed, they seem to remember, and when thepretended young crow begins his complaint at the bottom ofsome thick grove, they collect on a distant pine-tree, andhaw-haw in vigorous protest. But curiosity gets the better ofthem, and they generally compromise by sending over someswift, long-winged old flier. Over he comes, fast as he can fly, and the crowd stop theirclatter to watch results. Down he tumbles through the pinetops, at the report of a gun ; and away they go, screamingat the tops of their voices, and never stop till they are safeacross the valley. Next week they will act in exactly thesame way. Crows, more than any other birds, are fond of excitementand great crowds. The slightest unusual object furnishes anoccasion for an assembly to investigate. A wounded bird will create as much excitement in a flockof crows as a railroad accident does in a village. All the
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CROW WAYS. 17 crows seem to be talking at once, and advising the poorfellow what to do. When some prowling old crow discovers an owl sleepingaway the sunlight in the top of a great hemlock, his delightand excitement know no bounds. There is a suppressedexcitement in his very call that every crow in the neighbor-hood understands. Come ! come! everybody come! heseems to be screaming, as he circles over the tree-top ; andwithin two minutes there are more crows gathered aboutthat hemlock than one would believe existed within miles ofthe place. One day I counted over seventy immediately about a treein which one of them had found an owl, and there must havebeen as many more flying about the outskirts that I could notcount. At such times one can approach very near with a littlecaution, and attend, as it were, a crow caucus. Though Ihave attended a great many, I have never been able to dis-cover any real cause for the excitement. Those nearest the owl sit about in the trees, cawing vocif-erou

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