14 MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 



of corn. The crest slips easily into the trap, but refuses 

 to be pulled out again, and he who came to feast remains 

 a prey. 



Twice have the crow-blackbirds attempted a settle- 

 ment in my pines, and twice have the robins, who claim 

 a right of pre-emption, so successfully played the part 

 of border-ruffians as to drive them away, to my great 

 regret, for they are the best substitute we have for 

 rooks. At Shady Hill (now, alas ! empty of its so long- 

 loved household) they build by hundreds, and nothing 

 can be more cheery than their creaking clatter (like a 

 convention of old-fashioned tavern-signs) as they gather 

 at evening to debate in mass meeting their windy poli- 

 tics, or to gossip at their tent-doors over the events of 

 the day. Their port is grave, and their stalk across the 

 turf as martial as that of a second-rate ghost in Hamlet. 

 They never meddled with my corn, so far as I could 

 discover 



For a few years I had crows, but their nests are an 

 irresistible bait for boys, and their settlement was broken 

 up. They grew so wonted as to throw off a great part 

 of their shyness, and to tolerate my near approach. 

 One very hot day I stood for some time within twenty 

 feet of a mother and three children, who sat on an elm 

 bough over my head, gasping in the sultry air, and 

 holding their wings half-spread for coolness. All birds 

 during the pairing season become more or less sentimen- 

 tal, and murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the 

 grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their habitual 

 song. The crow is very comical as a lover, and to hear 

 him trying to soften his croak to the proper Saint Preux 

 standard, has something the effect of a Mississippi boat- 

 man quoting Tennyson. Yet there are few things to my 

 ear more melodious than his caw of a clear winter morn- 

 ing as it drops to you filtered through five hundred 



