50 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



crows appeared to have little else than frozen apples 

 for many weeks; they hung about the orchards as 

 a last resort, and, after scouring the desolate land- 

 scape over, would return to their cider with resig- 

 nation, but not with cheerful alacrity. They grew 

 very bold at times, and ventured quite under my 

 porch, and filched the bones that Lark, the dog, 

 had left. I put out some corn on the wall near by, 

 and discovered that crows will not eat corn in the 

 winter, except as they can break up the kernels. 

 It is too hard for their gizzards to grind. Then 

 the crow, not being properly a granivorous bird, 

 but a carnivorous, has not the digestive, or rather 

 the pulverizing power of the domestic fowls. The 

 difficulty also during such a season of coming at the 

 soil and obtaining gravel- stones, which, in such 

 cases, are really the millstones, may also have 

 something to do with it. Corn that has been 

 planted and has sprouted, crows will swallow read- 

 ily enough, because it is then soft, and is easily 

 ground. My impression has always been that in 

 spring and summer they will also pick up any 

 chance kernels the planters may have dropped. But, 

 as I observed them the past winter, they always 

 held the kernel under one foot upon the wall, and 

 picked it to pieces before devouring it. This is the 

 manner of the jays also. The jays, perhaps, had a 

 tougher time during the winter than the crows, 

 because they do not eat fish or flesh, but depend 

 mainly upon nuts. A troop of them came eagerly 

 to my ash-heap one morning, which had just been 



