OUTDOORS 



Of the crow's flight much could be written. 



Curving sweep of a burnished wing, 

 Black as the gloom of a winter night; 

 Strong in a sense of hardy flight 

 Over the woods and the mountain height, 

 Winds and the white moon following. 



Along the larger rivers crows gather in 

 many thousands, and when twilight comes 

 stealing on, and the silvery sickle of the new 

 moon is etched pale against the curtains of 

 night, they go by in long lines and com- 

 panies to their distant roosts in some far- 

 away forest. They fly high as a rule, and 

 for hours their steady travel blots the red 

 glare of the sinking sun and throws sombre 

 streaks athwart the leaden tapestry of shad- 

 ows that follow. You will wonder where 

 they all come from, where they are all go- 

 ing, -and how they manage to exist. If all 

 mankind were as stout-hearted as these van- 

 dals of the waste places arid pathless high- 

 ways, what a race we would be ! The crow 

 is truly a survival of the fittest, if endurance 

 and sagacity be a test. Some of them live to 

 be eighty or one hundred years old. Little, 

 indeed, do those resolute pinions care for 

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