« 



black-coated poultry thieves, which, of course, can be 

 destroyed, together with the old birds. Should you fail 

 to find the nest of the crow, you can easily dispose of 

 him by drilling an egg, insert a little strychnine in the 

 hole, and phice the deadly bait in a nest he has been 

 robbing or in a conspicuous place where he will be 

 likely to^see it as he comes spying around after the 

 chirping offspring of the fussy and ever solicitous old 

 hen, who, often penned up in a coop or fastened by a 

 long cord and one leg to a peg in the ground, is ever on 

 guard to shield her family of youngsters. 



HERONS. BLACKBIRDS AND JAYS. 



Several species of the heron tribe occasionally de- 

 vour the young of ducks and other birds which are 

 found about streams, ponds and marshy ground fre- 

 quented by these long-legged waders. Of late years, 

 however, the herons and bitterns have so greatly de- 

 creased in numbers, that the damage they do by de- 

 stroying the young of ducks or other kinds of birds is 

 trifling. 



Crow blackbirds are abundant in this State and if 

 these birds were as much given to preying on young 

 chickens and destroying the eggs of domestic fowls, us 

 they are to devouring the young and eggs of different 

 species of small insectivorous birds, they would no 

 doubt cause considerable loss annually. Fortunately, 

 however, the habit of feeding on the eggs of domestic 

 fowls and their young seems to be confined, so far as 

 my observation goes, to individual blackbirds, "black- 

 sheep," so to speak, which appear here and there in 

 different communities. Blackbirds which have acquired 

 an appetite for the eggs and young of domestic fowls 

 '•an oasilv be desi roved, but when this is done it would 



