Chapter X: Some Mischief-Makers

_Crows and Jays, Starlings and Grackles_

The children came back very promptly after the mid-morning recess, considering the attraction offered outside. Though cheeks and all available pockets fairly bulged with apples, they had sufficient appetite to enjoy the crisp cookies, plates of which were set at intervals on the plain-topped table in the playroom, together with pitchers of milk or a delicious drink of Ann’s invention compounded of oranges and lemons and sweetened with honey.

Gray Lady breakfasted at eight, but she knew very well that most of the folk of the Hill Country had their first meal at six, except perhaps in the dead of winter, so that a bit of luncheon between that time and noon was what Goldilocks called “a comfy necessity.”

“Now tell me what birds you saw this morning, and what they were doing,” said Gray Lady, as soon as the children had settled down. “Sarah Barnes, you may begin.”

“We didn’t see anything new, that is nothing much; but, oh, such a lot of common birds in flocks, Crows and Blue Jays and Blackbirds; why, there were enough Blackbirds to make it dark for a minute when they picked up and flew over the tumble-down old house over there in the corner. Of course, those birds aren’t very interesting, ’cause we all know about them, and I guess even Zella, who hasn’t lived here long, can tell a Crow or a Jay and Blackbird when she sees one.”

“Yes, ma’am, Lady, I know him Crow,” cried Zella, in delight at having some information to impart, “for my papa he plant corn seed in the lot. Crows they come push it out vit de nose and eat him. Then my papa and my brudder shoot bang! bang! but they not get him, ’cause him too wise. My Grossmutter say von time Crows was people, bad thief people, and they was made in birds to shame dem, but dey made bad thief birds, too, and dey kept wise like dey was people yet, so dey is hard catching. Den papa he made of ole clothes a man, and sat him the fence on, and the Crows dey comes on trees near away, and dey looks so at the mans and dey laughs together, but dey not come no more very near yet.”

“Yes; I see that Zella knows and sees the Crow as almost every one who owns a bit of land sees and knows him, but there are sides to these birds that are so common hereabouts that perhaps you do not know, for I did not at your age, and it is only of late years that the wise men have been trying to find good points in some birds that have been always called bad. What they have discovered goes to prove what an unfortunate thing it is for any one, bird or person, to get a bad name.”

“My Grandma says a bad name sticks just like fly-paper,” said Ruth Barnes, eagerly, “’cause even if you can peel it off you, it always somehow feels as if it was there.”

At this every one laughed, because almost every child at one time or another had been through some sort of an experience with sticky fly-paper, and little Bobbie chuckled so long that Gray Lady asked him what he knew about fly-paper, and thus drew forth the explanation that his father had sat on a sheet of fly-paper in the dark best parlor one Sunday morning when he was waiting for the family to get ready to drive to church, and nobody noticed until he, being a deacon, got up _to pass the plate_!

“What were the Crows and Jays and Blackbirds in the orchard doing, Tommy; did you notice?” asked Gray Lady, as she arranged some papers between the leaves of her scrap-book.

“The Jays were hanging around your lunch-counter in the old apple tree, that is, most of them; some seemed to be bringing acorns or some sort of big seeds from the river-woods way, and taking them into the attic of the old Swallow Chimney house. I never saw so many Jays at once; I counted sixteen of them,” said Tommy.

“The Crows and Grackles were walking on the ground, some in the grass meadow, and some in the open ploughed field, and they were all searching about as if they had lost something, and they kept picking and eating all the time.”

“Were they eating corn that had dropped, or rye?” asked Gray Lady.

“Oh, no, there wasn’t any corn there, and the rye isn’t sown yet. They were eating bugs and things like that, I guess,” said Tommy, to whom a new idea had come as he spoke.

“That is precisely what I hoped that one of you would see for yourself—the fact that both of these birds eat many things besides corn and grain.

“By the way, what kind of Blackbirds were they?—for we have three sorts that are very common here. The Red-winged, those with red shoulders that come in such numbers about the swampy meadows early in spring. The Cowbird of the pastures who is smaller than the Red-wing, with a brown head, neck, and breast, the rest of him being gloomy black, with what Goldilocks calls all the ‘soap-bubble colours’ glistening over it, though the Wise Men call this ‘iridescence.’

“Then there is the Crow-Blackbird or Purple Grackle, the largest of the three, who is quite a foot in length from tail-tip to point of beak. This Blackbird has glistening jet feathers, with all the beautiful rainbow colours on his back and wings, that almost form bars of metallic hue, and he is a really beautiful bird that we should certainly appreciate better if it were not so common. Now, of course, it is one step on the way to bird knowledge if you can say surely this is a Blackbird, but it is necessary to go on then and say _which_ Blackbird.”

“They were the Purple Grackle kind,” said Tommy, immediately, “for they were bigger than Cowbirds, and they had handsome shiny feathers, and they did just creak and grackle like everything while they walked around.”

“Very good,” said Gray Lady; “now I think that there are several things that you do not know about these birds, whom it is perfectly safe to call ‘mischief-makers’ and undesirable garden friends, though our best knowledge will not allow us to condemn them altogether as criminals, as was once the custom.”

At this moment Jim Crow, who had been on an excursion first to the room, then, by way of the branches of an overhanging sugar-maple, quite down to the orchard lunch-counter and back, had crept in at the window unobserved, walked across the floor to the work-table, about which the girls sat, and, going under it, was concealed by the cloth. At this moment Eliza Clausen dropped her thimble. It rolled under the table, and as she stooped to get it she was just in time to see Jim seize it in his beak and half fly, half scramble to the back of Goldilocks’ chair, with his prize held fast.

“Oh, my thimble! Jim’ll swallow it!” she wailed, and the boys, with one impulse, started in pursuit. They could not have done a worse thing, for, seeing himself cornered, Jim’s hiding instinct came to his aid, and sidling along to the unceiled side of the attic, he quickly dropped the thimble between the studs, and you could hear it rattle down to the next story. Then he took refuge behind his mistress’ chair, from which he peeped inquisitively, with the sidewise look peculiar to Crows, so that it was impossible not to laugh at his quizzical expression.

“Do not worry about the thimble, Eliza,” said Gray Lady, “for those you are wearing for the sewing lessons are not prize thimbles, but merely penny affairs. This gives you a chance to see some of the little bits of mischief that a tame young Crow can do in his first season, so that you can imagine what a wild, old, wise, leader Crow can plot and plan in other ways. You all know the Crow, or rather, to be exact, the American Crow, for there is the Fish Crow and a southern relation, the Florida Crow, and in all there are twenty-five different kinds in North America alone. This Common Crow is very plentiful here, as he is in almost all parts of the United States, where he makes his home from the Mexican border up to the fur countries.

“But do you know that this Crow is cousin to the Blue Jay?”

“How funny! What makes them cousins?—for they don’t look a bit alike, and they’re not the same colour or anything,” said Sarah, Tommy, and Dave, almost together.

“Yes, that is true, but colour and feathers have nothing to do with bird relationship any more than coloured hair has to do with human families, and you can see that here among yourselves. The Baltimore Oriole, Meadowlark, Bobolink, and Purple Grackle all belong in one family, and yet how unlike they seem. It is the construction of the bird’s body and its habits and traits that serve the Wise Men as guides to their grouping, and in these traits the two are much alike, for Mr. Chapman, who knows all about these birds, whether as museum specimens, where he can study their bones, or as wild birds in the trees, where he watches them day in and day out, says, ‘Our Crows and Jays inhabit wooded regions, and, although they shift about to a limited extent, they are resident throughout the year, except at the northern limits of their range. They are omnivorous feeders, taking fruits, seeds, insects, eggs, nestlings, etc. Crows and Jays exhibit marked traits of character and are possessed of unusual intelligence. Some scientists place them at the top of the tree of bird-life, and if their mental development be taken into consideration they have undoubted claim to high rank.’

“You see, also, that here is a Wise Man who believes that birds have intelligence that implies thinking, and this is different from the mere inherited instinct that teaches animals how to obtain food, self-protection, etc. There are people who believe that they are the only wise animals, and deny that birds and beasts can think; while there are others who try to make these birds and beasts think on the same lines as ourselves rather than in their own way. Both these are wrong; both are like blind men that lead others into a ditch and leave them there. The only way for you and me to do is to watch out for ourselves, look carefully, and be very sure that we see what is, and not merely what we would like to see.

“Now I will tell you what I, myself, have seen and know, and what others, whose word is guaranteed by the Wise Men, have seen concerning Crows and Jays. When I was a child, twenty-five years ago, riding my pony, I wandered all over the country-side with my father, and I knew every Crow roost and Hawk’s nest for miles, and for many years after I watched their comings and goings. Late last winter, when I came back to the dear home to live, I went out to the nearest of the old Crow roosts in the cedar woods yonder across the river (you can see the tree-tops plainly from this window), and, in spite of time and changes, a flock of Crows was still there.

“To be sure, the flock was smaller, and there were fewer Cedars, many having been turned into fence and gate posts. But the Crows, big, black, solemn things as they are, seemed to give me a welcome.

“The life of the Crow is dull if judged, perhaps, from the standpoint of the birds that make long journeys, such as the Swallows, Humming-birds, and the Night Hawk (that isn’t a Hawk at all), who nest in the far North and go back to spend the winter in Central or South America.

“Yet all we stay-at-home people know how much can happen even here in Fair Meadows township, and, if we extend our territory from salt water, or the southeast, to the hickory woods beyond the Grist-Mill on the northwest, there is room enough for happenings that would make an exciting life for any pair of Crows. For in considering Crows, we must take the life of a pair, one of their good traits being their personal and race fidelity, and when they mate, it is usually for life.

“It is middle autumn now; what are the Crows doing? All through August and early fall they have been feeding good on grasshoppers, caterpillars, locusts, and cutworms. This flock that roost in the cedar woods are doing that which occupies most of a bird’s time in season and out, working for a living, and in doing this they are searching the grass meadows and ploughed fields for insects of every sort and description.

“Their time of mischief is over for the year. The corn is cut and stacked; they may if they please tear the husks from the cobs and then reach the corn, but they are not fond of tough, dry corn, though, of course, they eat it when really hungry. But just now there is plenty to be gleaned from the field, and when the winter hungry time comes, the good corn will be stored safe in the granaries.

“Every night, before sunset, the Crows of the flock leave the various feeding-places in twos and threes, and flap across country in a leisurely fashion toward the roost, where they spend their nights all the year except during the nesting season. They return thus in little parties, if there is no cause for fear, but should a man with a gun, a large Owl, or other suspicious object appear, either the Crow on the watch, for there is always one of these who guards the destiny of the flock, gives a signal by a sharp quavering Ca-ca-w or, if this seems too rash, the leader will simply take to wing and slip away silently, and, no matter how quietly the leader slips away, the rest of the flock know it and rise at once. How do they know this?”

“Maybe they smell, just as our rabbit hounds do when they start out after things that no one else sees or knows about,” said Tommy Todd.

“No, birds are not guided by scent as animals are,” said Gray Lady; “scent is held to the ground by moisture; it would be difficult to follow when it is blown about by air. Birds are led by their sight, which is many times keener than that of man or the lower animals. Then, too, they have another sense more fully developed than other animals, and that is what is called the ‘sense of direction.’ Knowing the spot to which they would go, they are able to reach it in the quickest, most direct manner, so that ‘as the Crow flies’ has come to mean the most direct way of reaching a place.

“When morning comes they leave the roost, and, breaking up into parties, begin the search for food again. As the supply near home gives out, they go farther and farther afield, sometimes going down to the shore, where they pick up clams, mussels, and any scraps of sea-food that they can find.

“After the corn has been taken in, they find scattered kernels of that and other grain left in the field, but at the first snowfall hard times set in for the Crow. He cannot search the bark crevices for insects like the small tree-trunk birds with slender bills; people do not welcome him to their farm-yards and scatter grain for him, or leave him free to glean, as they do the other winter birds. It is at this time, when the hand of man is turned against him, that the Crow really works in man’s interest by catching meadow-mice and many other small destructive animals.

“At this time, the Crow eats frozen apples, poison-ivy berries, acorns, beech and chestnuts, and the like. But now he grows poor and thin and his voice is querulous, and from November to March the Crow is put to it for a living. ‘Poor as a Crow’ is an apt saying.

THE CROW

Then it is a distant cawing,
Growing louder—coming nearer,
Tells of crows returning inland
From their winter on the marshes.

Iridescent is their plumage,
Loud their voices, bold their clamour.
In the pools and shallows wading,
Or in overflowing meadows
Searching for the waste of winter—
Scraps and berries freed by thawing.
Weird their notes and hoarse their croaking
Silent only when the night comes.

—Frank Bolles.

“With the thawing out of the ground in spring, the Crow begins to view the world differently. The search for insects still continues, and the corn now gleaned is more palatable, for it has been well soaked, and though a corn-eater by nature, the Crow does not like his too hard and dry.

“The flock life of the roost now ends. Every Jack chooses his Jill, and mingled with the harsh warning cries of the older birds are sounds that sometimes have a suggestion that their makers are trying to sing. The funniest thing in birdland is to see a Crow or a Purple Grackle making love, standing on tiptoe on a branch, raising their wings by jerks, like pump-handles that are stiff, while the sounds they make stick in the throat in a manner that suggests Crow croup.

“Once in a long time, however, I have heard a Crow begin with a high Caw, and then followed a series of soft, almost musical, notes, though without tune or finish, but this is the exception. But what, in his courting days, a Crow lacks in song, he makes up by wonderful feats of flight. For his size, the Crow is always a graceful bird on the wing. When he flaps slowly up against the wind, there is nothing laboured in his motions, but in the spring, in company with a desired mate, his swift dives into the air, wheels to right and left, circlings often finished by a series of somersaults across the sky, are really marvellous.

“Now the pair of Crows that we will call Jack and Jill, to save time, leave the cedar woods and begin hunting for a nesting-site. At first they looked through the hickory woods for an old Hawk’s nest for a foundation upon which to build, but this year there were two Red-tailed Hawks already in possession, and so they hurried away as quickly as possible, for Hawks do not like Crows, and tell them so very plainly.

“Next day they spied the great white pine back of Farmer Boardman’s barn. They liked the looks of the tree, for it had a bunch of closely knit branches near the top, and the neighbourhood in all respects promised good feeding, but before they had carried more than a few coarse sticks and put them in place, the farmer’s man saw them, and not only fired his gun at them to drive them away, but climbed the tree and threw the sticks away in order to be sure that they should not rest there.

“What did Jack and Jill do next? They came flying over here. The place was attractive, and it was easy to slip from the pine woods to the hickories, then across to the orchard, and up to the spruce trees outside the window here. Goldilocks was too ill to come up into the playroom then, and so the windows on this side of the attic were shut.

“The nest-building began in earnest, both birds working at it. First, a foundation of stout sticks, some of them being half-dead twigs from these same spruces; then, old weed stalks and vine tendrils, mixed with corn husks, until a heap was collected that would fill a half-bushel basket.

“This was the outside of the house; the nursery itself was hollowed in the centre of the moss and was about a foot across and quite deep. This hollow was well lined and soft; it had in it moss, soft grasses, and some horsehair. In due time the nest was finished and held six very handsome eggs, dull green with purplish brown markings, two being more thickly spattered with them than the other four. At this time I began to take an interest in the household affairs of Jack and Jill Crow.”

“How could you?—can you climb trees?” asked Eliza Clausen, evidently much surprised.

“No, I couldn’t climb as far as this Crow’s nest, Eliza, though I could have once,” laughed Gray Lady. “Stand up on that seat by the corner window and look straight down into the spruce with a crooked top and tell me what you see.”

Eliza jumped up on the seat, and, after gazing a minute, cried, “Why, it’s a big ’normous nest, and I can see every stick as plain as print.”

“Take this opera-glass, hold it to your eyes and move the screw to and fro until everything is very clear, and then tell me what you see,” said Gray Lady.

It took Eliza some time to manage the glass, but when she at last succeeded she cried, “Oh, I can see the moss and the grass and the hair; it comes as near as if I could touch it.” And one after another the children learned to adjust the focus and look, and it was the first, but not the last, time that glasses would open a new world to them.

“It was a little less than three weeks that the birds sat upon the eggs, sharing the work between them, before the little birds were hatched. Such ugly, queer little things as they were, both blind and featherless. In three weeks more they were well grown and able to fly, but their tails were still shorter than their parents’, and they were inclined to return to the nest on the slightest alarm.

“About this time Jacob Hughes told me that either Crows or Hawks were taking little chickens early every morning, for they could not get them during the daytime without being seen.

“I looked at the runs for the little chicks and saw that they stood in the open, not close to woods where Crows and Hawks could spy them out and sneak up or dash down according to their habits.

“I well knew the bad name that Crows and Hawks have among poultry-raisers, so Jacob roofed the chicken-runs with wire, for, even if he had seen Crows there, I would not allow shooting on the place during the nesting season.

“Still the chickens disappeared, and for several nights Jacob sat up and watched, and what do you suppose—cats and weasels were the guilty ones, not the Hawks and Crows!

“But late in May the Crows prepared to raise their second brood, mending their old nest, and Jacob said, ‘Something is robbing the nests in the orchard; I think surely it is the Crows and Jays, for when they come around all the song-birds chase them and say right out as plain as possible, “They’re thieves—they’re thieves!”’ So I watched from behind the blinds yonder, and in every spot where I could see into the tree-tops and be unobserved—and then I knew it was true that the Crows and Jays were detestable cannibals.

“One single morning I saw the Crow take three robin’s eggs and bring a tiny little robin squab to his mate on the nest, and one day, as a Crow flew high over my head, I thought I saw something strange in its beak, and clapped my hands sharply, when—what do you think? A poor little half-dead Wood Thrush, big enough to have its eyes open and some feathers, dropped almost on my upturned face, and thus the Crow was caught in the very act of killing. So, then, I said to myself, we can put tar on the seed-corn and protect our young chickens with wire, but we cannot make up for the death of young nestlings and the loss of eggs. I will not have the Crows shot, because they do good in the far meadows and hayfields, but the lonely woods, where few small birds nest, is the place for them. I shall see that they never again build in my garden orchard or woods, and if every one will do this, the danger to song-birds will be less, and in the winter, when they come about, there are no nestlings to be eaten.

“It was not long after that, owing to the evidence of my own eyes, I was obliged to say the same thing to the Blue Jay.

“The Wise Men say that, take it all in all, the Crow should have a chance, and that part of his faults come from our own shiftlessness. This is true, but if he feeds upon song-birds the Crow must go.

_The Blue Jay_

“That the Blue Jay is a handsome fellow goes without saying, as well as that he has plenty of assurance and is somewhat of a bully. We may imagine that he knows that his uniform of blue, gray, and white, with black bands and markings, is very becoming, and if any one of you should tell me that he had seen a Jay admiring his reflection in a pond or little pool, I should be ready to believe him. Certain it is that not one of our birds, not even the glowing Scarlet Tanager, presents a more neat and military appearance.

Order—Passeres Family—Corvidæ
Genus—Cyanocitta Species—Cristata

“The only awkward thing about the Blue Jay is his flight. Although alert and agile in slipping through the trees, when he takes to wing his progress seems laboured, as if either his body was too heavy for his wings, or that the wings were stiff.

“Like the Crow, his cousin, this Jay belongs to all north-eastern America, making its home from Florida to Newfoundland, and, like the Crow, we have some members of its family with us in New England all the winter, when it is certainly a pleasure to see them flying through the bare trees or gathering food on the pure white snow.

“The Jay does not annoy the farmer by pulling corn, nor trouble the chicken yard; for eight or nine months he earns an honest living, largely of vegetable food and harmful insects, snails, tree frogs, mice, small fish, and lizards, but in the breeding season, alas! he is a nest robber, and here in my own garden and orchard I have seen him this summer dodging and trying to avoid the angry birds that were pursuing him.

“Twice I heard nestling Robins twittering as they do when their parents come with food, but, like the wolf disguised as Red Riding-Hood’s Grandmother, it was a Jay who came to the nest and seized a squab, as my eyes saw and the cries of the parent birds told.

“Then I said to Jacob, ‘We will not let the Jays build in Birdland; they must be outcasts and go out and live in the far-away woods with the Crows, where there are few small birds.’

“How can we keep them out, you ask? It does take a little time and patience, to be sure, but if we watch when they begin to build and take away the sticks, you may be very sure that they will take the hint and go elsewhere, for they are quick-witted birds. So, perhaps, in time they would learn, at least in some regions, to inhabit places where mice and other harmful rodents and bugs are more plentiful than song-birds.

“Then in the winter we of the Kind Hearts’ Club can make up for this seeming unkindness, and pay them for the real good they do by feeding them through the hungry time, when nuts, berries, and even frozen apples are not to be found.”

“What is a Blue Jay’s nest like? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one,” asked Tommy Todd.

“It is not very easy to find, for they usually build rather high up, in a place where the limb is crotched and has many small branches. The nest itself is well made of fibres and roots, and is usually quite cleverly hidden, and the eggs are dull green, very thickly spotted.

“Aside from the Jay’s unaccountable cannibal habit of egg and squab hunting, he has many good qualities, both as a parent and a friend to those of his own kind, and though his call is harsh, and, like the creaking of the Grackles, a reminder of coming frosts and bare trees, in spring he has some pretty melodious notes and another call totally different from the harsh jay, jay. This cry is like the resonant striking of two bits of metal, a clink without exactly the ring that a bell has,—yet I call it the ‘bell note,’ though perhaps the double sound produced by hammer and anvil is a better comparison.

“In the fall, however, the Jay’s voice is certainly harsh, and not only lacks anything like musical quality, but is so harsh that when there are many about the noise is really annoying. The poet Lathrop describes the change so well that I will read it to you.

O JAY!

O Jay!
Blue Jay!
What are you trying to say?
I remember, in the spring
You pretended you could sing;
But your voice is now still queerer,
And as yet you’ve come no nearer
To a song.
In fact, to sum the matter,
I never heard a flatter
Failure than your doleful clatter.
Don’t you think it’s wrong?
It was sweet to hear your note,
I’ll not deny,
When April set pale clouds afloat
O’er the blue tides of sky.
And ’mid the wind’s triumphant drums
You in your white and azure coat,
A herald proud, came forth to cry,
“The royal summer comes!”

* * * * * *

Sometimes your piping is delicious,
And then again it’s simply vicious;
Though on the whole the varying jangle
Weaves round me an entrancing tangle
Of memories grave or joyous:
Things to weep or laugh at;
Love that lived at a hint, or
Days so sweet they’d cloy us.
Nights I have spent with friends:—
Glistening groves of winter,
And the sound of vanished feet
That walked by the ripening wheat:

* * * * * *

Such mixed-up things your voice recalls,
With its peculiar quirks and falls.
Well, I’ll admit
There’s merit in a voice that’s truthful;
Yours is not honey sweet nor youthful,
But querulously fit.
And if we cannot sing, we’ll say
Something to the purpose, Jay!

—George Parsons Lathrop.

“The Blue Jay makes as good a forest watchman as the Crow. Steal along ever so quietly, and if he chances to spy you, good-by to seclusion; his cry of alarm rouses every bird within ear-shot. But it is in their family life the Jays show to the best advantage, for they will stay by the nest and fight to the death, if necessary, while big cousin Crow, though he makes a precious racket, takes good care to keep himself well out of harm’s way.

“One trait belongs to this bird that I have never seen recorded of any other, though, of course, it may be common to all, and that is the care of the aged.

“To care for the young, even among people, is an instinct as strong as self-protection. To care for the aged implies a good heart and a certain amount of unselfishness. This story is written down by Major Bendire, in his book on the _Life Histories of American Birds_. He lived much with the birds, and saw so truly that the Wise Men believe what he records.

_Mr. Firth to Major Bendire_,—

I made some observations last summer on the habits of the Blue
Jay, which certainly show a degree of sympathy and kindness
worthy of imitation of animals of a higher order. Last August
(1887), on an old farm in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, my
attention was attracted by the notes of a Blue Jay, not the
ordinary cry, but a series of regular calls, followed by answers
from a neighbouring tree. There was something so peculiarly like
a communication of thought about the sound that I went to the
place, and saw an old Blue Jay perched on a fence some distance
from the tree where there were others.

On my nearing the bird, the calls from the others became more
frequent and loud, changing from a low, pleasant communicative
tone to shrill alarm. Thinking that he was injured in some way,
I went up to him and found that at least he was partially blind.
The eyes were blurred and dim, the beautiful blue feathers were
faded; in fact, the general appearance of the bird was so
different as to be seen at a glance; the claws were worn, the
bill dulled, and the wings and tail ragged. Every feature
suggested old age and feebleness. Yet he was watched and cared
for as tenderly as ever a growing bird in the nest.

No sooner had I caught him than there were at least a dozen Jays
close at hand whose sympathy and interest were manifest as
clearly as could be with words.

After a thorough examination I let him go, when he flew in the
direction of the sound of the others, but did not succeed in
alighting among the smaller branches of the tree, and finally
settled on a large limb near the ground. I saw him, after that,
every day for a week, and never did his companions desert him,
some one of them being always near and warning him of danger,
when he would fly toward the sound of their voices.

They guided him regularly to a spring near by, where I saw him
bathe daily, always, however, with some of his companions close
by.

They not only watched and guided him, but they fed him. I had
noticed, some days before, Jays carrying food and thought it
strange at that season, as there were no young to feed, but
found afterwards, to my surprise and pleasure, that the poor,
blind bird was being fed by those he could no longer see.

“So you see the Jay, with all his bad tricks and nest-robbing, has his good points, and we will not shoot him, but hint very strongly, if necessary, that he had better nest away from the temptation that garden and orchards offer in the shape of eggs and fresh meat.”

As Gray Lady ended, a great commotion arose in the neighbourhood of the orchard. Jays screamed and Crows cawed, as if, Goldilocks said, they knew that they were being talked about, and didn’t like it.

Gray Lady opened one of the windows and looked out. Below stood Jacob, waving his hat to attract attention, saying through his hands, “There are some Screech Owls on a branch of the old willow back of the orchard, and the other birds have found it out. The Crows are mixing in and there’s a great how-de-do. I thought maybe you would all like to see them, only I couldn’t go up for fear they might shift away.”

Of course they wished to see, and it was quite remarkable how fifteen usually noisy children managed to tiptoe through the orchard and avoid sticks and dry leaves.

THE WISE OLD CROW

Not all the people know
The wisdom of the Crow:
As they see him come and go,
With verdict brief,
They say, “You thief!”
And wish him only woe.

That he’s selfish we admit,
But he has a lot of grit,
And on favour not a bit
Does he depend;
Without a friend,
He must live by mother-wit.

The Crow is rather shy,
With a very watchful eye
For danger coming nigh,
And any one
Who bears a gun
He’s pretty sure to spy.

The clever farmer’s plan
Is to make a sort of ban,
By stuffing clothes with bran,
Topped with a tile
Of ancient style,
—A funny old scarecrow man.

The Crow looks on with scorn,
And early in the morn
Pulls up the farmer’s corn:
He laughs at that,
The queer old hat,
Of the scarecrow man forlorn.

—Garrett Newkirk, in _Bird-Lore_.