210 WINTER BIRDS ABOUT BOSTON. 
Common you may see them almost any day 
(in some seasons, at least) flying back and 
forth between the river and the harbor. One 
morning in early March I witnessed quite a 
procession, one small company after another, 
the largest numbering eleven birds, though it 
was nothing to compare with what seems to be 
a daily occurrence at some places further south. 
At another time, in the middle of January, I 
saw what appeared to be a flock of herring gulls 
sailing over the city, making progress in their 
own wonderfully beautiful manner, circle after 
circle. But I noticed that about a dozen of 
them were black! What were these? If they 
could have held their peace I might have gone 
home puzzled; but the crow is in one respect a 
very polite bird: he will seldom fly over your 
head without letting fall the compliments of 
the morning, and a vigorous caw, caw soon pro- 
claimed my black gulls to be simply erratic 
specimens of Corvus Americanus. Why were 
they conducting thus strangely ? Had they be- 
come so attached to their friends as to have 
taken to imitating them unconsciously? Or 
were they practicing upon the vanity of these 
useful allies of theirs, these master fishermen ? 
Who can answer? The ways of shrewd people 
are hard to understand; and in all New Eng- 
land there is no shrewder Yankee than the 
crow. 
