WANDERERS. 265 



that I have known between two and three hun- 

 dred captured in a single season ; not that we 

 wished to destroy them, but positively they insisted 

 on getting into the traps we were forced to keep 

 set, in order to check the increase of more de- 

 structive vermin." 



I have quoted from this high authority because 

 some, I know, have considered me a little one- 

 sided and enthusiastic in pleading, as I still hope 

 to do, for the preservation of some of the creatures 

 in our country. Fortunately I do not stand alone 

 in this. If ever a man studied the habits of birds 

 impartially, it was E. T. Booth. 



The raven has interested me at all times; not 

 that my chances of studying him have been numer- 

 ous, but I have made the most of those I had. 

 That he admirably fills the place for which he was 

 formed, no one that has seen him can doubt. He 

 is, I think, the closest feeder of any bird I am 

 acquainted with. " Waste not, want not," is evi- 

 dently the principle he works upon. One might 

 say of him as the negro said of the shark, " Him 

 berry clean feeder, sah." 



That grand bird the cob, or great black -backed 



