BIRD STORIES 



picking berries in his throat cup and showing how many 

 he had found that the children did in seeing which could 

 first fill a tin cup before they sat down on the rocks to 

 eat them. 



One day the Brown-eyed Boy and the Blue-eyed Girl 

 were down by the river, hunting for pearls. A pearl- 

 hunter had shown them how to open freshwater clam- 

 shells without killing the clams. Suddenly Corbie walked 

 up and, taking one of these hard-shelled animals right 

 out of their hands, he flew high overhead and dropped it 

 down on the rocks near b3\ Of course that broke the 

 shell and of course Corbie came down and ate the clam, 

 without needing any vinegar or butter on it to make it 

 taste good to him. How he learned to do this, the child- 

 ren never knew. Perhaps he found out by just happen- 

 ing to drop one he was carrying, or perhaps he saw the 

 wild crows drop their clams to break the shells : for after 

 nesting season the}^ used often to come down from the 

 mountainside to fish by the river for snails and clams 

 and crayfish, when they were not helping the farmers by 

 eating up insects in the fields. 



Corbie liked the crayfish, too, as well as people like 

 lobsters and crabs, and he had many an exciting hunt, 

 poking under the stones for them and pulling them out 

 with his strong beak. 



There seemed to be no end of things Corbie could do 



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