BARKING CROWS. 67 



As a contrast to this and other gay-looking 

 birds, hosts of crows take up building-lots in the 

 thick thorn-bushes and lofty pine-trees. The 

 latter position is chosen by the Barking Crow 

 (Corvus americanus). 



If birds are gifted with ventriloquial powers, 

 I should say the Barking Crow was at the top of 

 the profession. Wandering through the forest 

 encircling the prairie, one's ears are dinned by 

 the extraordinary sounds made by these crows. 

 Sometimes it seems as if these hidden polypho- 

 nists were making all sorts of disagreeable fun of 

 you, and chuckling hoarsely at their own jokes ; 

 then one goes in for a ' bit of a song,' and others 

 readily taking it up, they manage between them 

 to raise, as a refrain, a combination of discords 

 compared to which the parrots' screams in the 

 Zoological Gardens is whispered melody. They 

 shriek, laugh, yell, shout, whistle, scream, and 

 bark driving one to wish all the crows in British 

 Columbia were consigned to the depths of Hades. 

 If listening eagerly for the note of a bird you are 

 most wishful to discover, a Barking Crow is pretty 

 sure to perch close over your head and begin its 

 unearthly noises ; or if enjoying the notes of a 

 forest minstrel, its songs perhaps quite new to 

 the ear, in comes a crow with its husky gurgling 



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