232 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIEDS 



May 11, 1855. You can hardly walk in a thick pine 

 wood now, especially a swamp, but presently you will 

 have a crow or two over your head, either silently flit- 

 ting over, to spy what you would be at and if its nest 

 is in danger, or angrily cawing. It is most impressive 

 when, looking for their nests, you first detect the pre- 

 sence of the bird by its shadow. 



Dec. 15, 1855. How like a bird of ill omen the 

 crow behaves! Still holding its ground in our midst 

 like a powwow that is not to be exterminated! Some- 

 times when I am going through the Deep Cut, I look up 

 and see half a dozen black crows flitting silently across 

 in front and ominously eying down ; passing from one 

 wood to another, yet as if their passage had reference 

 to me. 



Jan. 22, 1856. Somebody has been fishing in the 

 pond this morning, and the water in the holes is be- 

 ginning to freeze. I see the track of a crow, the toes 



as usual less spread and the middle one making a more 

 curved furrow in the snow than the partridge, as if 

 they moved more unstably, recovering their balance, 

 — feeble on their feet. The inner toe a little the 

 nearest to the middle one. This track goes to every 

 hole but one or two out of a dozen, — directly from 

 hole to hole, sometimes flying a little, — and also to an 

 apple-core on the snow. I am pretty sure that this bird 

 was after the bait which is usually dropped on the ice 

 or in the hole. E. Garfield says they come regularly 

 to his holes for bait as soon as he has left. So, if the 



