CROW BLACKBIRD. 23 
drowned by the tolling bells. Instances of their 
quarrels with robins and other birds would fill a 
volume, but the most interesting feud of which 
I have heard was enacted in the garden of the 
keen observer and botanist, Mrs. Helen M. Bagg, 
and its progress was watched by her unnoticed, 
as she looked out upon the participants from 
among the flowering shrubs and vines that sur- 
round her cottage. I quote her racy descrip- 
tion : — 
“ Karly one May two robins, with many mani- 
festations of happiness, set up house-keeping in a 
tree near the south end of my house. <A few days 
later a large flock of blackbirds alighted on the 
trees on the north side of the yard. There had 
been a blackbird wedding, and their friends had 
escorted them hither with the laudable intention 
of finding a suitable location for a nest for the 
happy pair. A loud chattering and fluttering fol- 
lowed, one advising this place, another that. At 
length the young husband espied the broad top 
of the water-pipe, under the eaves, and settled on 
that as a most secure and suitable home for his 
bride. The wedding guests, with the satisfaction 
that comes from the consciousness of having per- 
formed one’s duty, took their departure, leaving 
the blissful couple to the uninterrupted enjoyment 
of their own society. Ah! who could have fore- 
told ‘on night so fair, such awful morn’ could 
rise?” 
