50 Clear Skies and Cloudy. 



the audience listening. So in the case of the 

 crows to-day ; one harangued and the others 

 listened and occasionally commented upon what 

 was said ; possibly applauded. These birds 

 have not copied all this from man, but it has 

 come about in their case, as in ours, gradually. 

 They have learned the value of consultation, and 

 that the pros and cons of a proposition must be 

 duly considered. Certainly this was done to- 

 day by the crows assembled in my hill-side oaks, 

 and to reach such a point of complex mentality 

 means advanced intelligence. Those wonderful 

 instincts about which, when children, we heard 

 so much played no part in what I have called a 

 corvine congress. Even the posting of senti- 

 nels is not instinctive, but the result of fore- 

 thought based upon experience. Truly, crows 

 are cunning, but not merely from necessitated 

 exercise of caution, as is possibly true of a fox, 

 but cunning to the degree of planning what 

 under given circumstances it is best to do ; and 

 how, with a fair measure of safety, they can pit 

 their intelligence against that of man. Some 

 mammals do this and a few birds, but I know 

 of none in this country that go so far in the 



