212 KNOWING BIRDS THROUGH STORIES 



lining of their moutlis became a pale sickly white and one 

 died. 



Clearly something must be done. I made excursions to 

 the meadow and fed the remaining bird three or four 

 meals of grasshoppers which relieved the situation very 

 much. The young turkeys by this time had grown large 

 enough to require an abundance of Dutch cheese, which 

 mother began to keep on hand at all times. It was just as 

 handy to feed this to the crow as bread, and it became the 

 staple article of diet. Within two days the crow's mouth 

 came back to a brilliant red, his coat soon took on gloss, 

 and before the week was out he was able to fly. He es- 

 caped death by the fortunate circumstance of mother's 

 turkeys requiring an abundance of freshly made Dutch 

 cheese. And just here I will say that if you should wish 

 to raise young birds as pets, there is no food that I have 

 found so generally satisfactory as plenty of Dutch cheese, 

 freshly made from milk that has not been skimmed closely. 

 Of course it is not well to give this as the only food. 



When Sam learned to fly he soon became a nuisance — ^he 

 was so curious. He was always following some of the 

 family about, paying attention to everything that was 

 going on. He appeared as innocent as a baby, but let 

 some one lay down anything small enough for him to 

 carry and then step away for a moment and it was sure to 

 be gone when he returned. Sam made a specialty of carry- 

 ing off spools of thread, scissors, pocket knives, nails, bolts, 

 screws, etc., and then watching to see what would be done 

 when the loss was discovered. He was sure to be busy 

 jabbering to himself in a low tone when we were busiest 

 searching for the lost article. This went on for some time 

 before we discovered where the things were going. We 



