CROW RELATIVES 



find a nest favorably situated. I have not attempted 

 it owing to pressure of other work, but once I placed 

 a dummy camera close to a nest with young, and the 

 old birds soon learned to ignore it and fed their off- 

 spring. In the West the crows are much tamer than 

 here in the East. Out in North Dakota, I have been 

 able to walk within a few steps of crows incubating 

 in low trees, and it probably would not have been very 

 hard to photograph them, had I been able to take 

 the time. 



Everyone knows how tame they become in severe 

 winter weather when the snow is deep. Chilled and 

 emaciated, they come close to houses and barns seeking 

 food. Some years ago one came to a city street so 

 exhausted that it could not fly, and I rescued it from 

 a gang of cruel boys who were kicking it to death. I 

 saw the remains of one on the snow in the woods, 

 wdiich a fox had eaten, as was shown by the many 

 tracks, and they sometimes fall victims to hawks and 

 owls. Near a certain hawk's nest recently, one lay 

 dead on the ground, with the flesh of its breast torn 

 out. Next day nothing was there but a few feathers. 



They breed quite early and it is time to find their 

 eggs during the last half of April. In regions where 

 there are pines they build in these, and high up, where 

 the nests are generally hard to see from the ground. 

 In such country as that where I now live, pines are 

 scarce, and Ned and I hunt for crows' nests in decidu- 

 ous trees or hemlocks. 



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