124 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
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 sug- 
gestion 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. 
