VICISSITUDES OF SINK-BOX SHOOTING 47 
an old lady crow, a scout, sent forward to look the 
ground over and see if all was well. Far behind her 
came four other crows, flying silently but taking orders 
from the scout ahead. The female crow is the boss of 
the family. An old female is the natural leader and 
commander of all flocks of crows; wily, sagacious, and 
always suspicious, she leads, the others follow. 
I didn’t like that crow. Either this identical bird or 
one just like her had flown high overhead the day 
before and by mocking shouts and scoldings frightened 
away a nice bunch of ducks that were coming to the 
decoys. Or at least I imagined so. The crow was 
easily two gunshots away and it seemed a good time to 
read her the riot act. So I presented her with a charge 
of number seven shot. ‘The shot struck; it was too far 
to do any harm but it certainly ruffled her temper. She 
flopped over, lost a stroke or two of her wings, then 
recovering she let out a string of crow oaths at me and 
a lot of swear words of warning to the four crows follow- 
ing silently behind. They all turned and went back. 
Half an hour later I saw the entire program repeated. 
The old lady crow in advance, with her henpecked hus- 
band and their three offspring following behind, crossed 
the lake two hundred yards south of the sink box. 
This time they got safely over and alighted silently on 
the edge of the marsh, probably after small shell fish. 
The gulls had the lake all to themselves. Gulls are 
veneratedin Utah. Two big bronze gulls mounted ona 
tall pedestal form one of the sights of Salt Lake City. 
They commemorate the escape from famine of the early 
settlers of the Salt Lake Valley. The half-grown crops 
were attacked one summer by swarms of locusts. All 
manner of ways were tried to destroy them, but where 
one was killed, ten seemed to take its place. Matters 
