CHAPTER XIX 



FEATHERED AND FOUR-FOOTED BIRD ENEMIES 



FEATHERED enemies are those from 

 which it is very difficult to protect our 

 small birds, and unfortunately some 

 have been rapidly increasing in numbers. 

 Much has been written of the good qualities 

 of the Crow, of his sins perhaps we have not 

 heard enough. It is not easy to condemn in 

 wholesale fashion a bird that figures so largely 

 in fables of our childhood, and that school 

 books from time immemorial have termed the 

 wise old Crow. In spite of tradition, however, 

 the Crow has become, in some districts, one 

 of our most serious bird enemies. 



In the old days, the days in which the fables 

 and the early school book stories originated, 

 the Crow was not so serious an enemy of our 

 smaller birds, for comparatively they were not 

 so numerous. They had enemies of their own 

 to keep them in check. Huge Owls were the 

 terror of the Crows at night, and Eagles and 

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