

Silverspot 



dead leaves were so wet that no rustle was made. 

 I chanced to pass under the old nest, and was 

 surprised to see a black tail sticking over the 

 edge. I struck the tree a smart blow, off flew 

 a crow, and the secret was out. I had long 

 suspected that a pair of crows nested each year 

 about the pines, but now I realized that it was 

 Silverspot and his wife. The old nest was 

 theirs, and they were too wise to give it an air 

 of spring-cleaning and housekeeping each year. 

 Here they had nested for long, though guns in 

 the hands of men and boys hungry to shoot 

 crows were carried under their home every day. 

 I never surprised the old fellow again, though I 

 Several times saw him through my telescope. 



One day while watching I saw a crow crossing 

 the Don Valley with something white in his 

 beak. He flew to the mouth of the Rosedale 

 Brook, then took a short flight to the Beaver 

 Elm. There he dropped the white object, and 

 looking about gave me a chance to recognize 

 my old friend Silverspot. After a minute he 

 picked up the white thing — a shell — and walked 

 over past the spring, and here, among the docks 

 and the skunk-cabbages, he unearthed a pile of 



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