A PLEA FOR PROTECTING OUH NATH E BIRDS. Ib8 



the mischief they do iu the corufields. They are really the most 

 useful birds we have ; the}' are great scavengers ; the}' carry off 

 ever}' dead suake, frog, and mouse — every kind of carrion, which 

 would breed pestilence were it not thus removed. And as to 

 pulling up corn, they can be educated out of that. The speaker 

 said that they do not pull up his corn, and have not for thirty 

 years. When he first came to the place where he now lives they 

 pulled up his corn some, but he taught them better. Generally 

 they do not pull up much except in a very cold, rainy day, when 

 they will do more harm than in an entire week of fair weather. 

 But just set a steel-trap baited with a rotten egg and catch one of 

 the crows, and all the crows in the region will see it, and shun that 

 field, especially if you hang up the dead crow iu the field. 



He has in his home a painting made by the artist of the family, 

 representing a venerable crow, slightly gray, holding in one foot a 

 wild turkey quill pen, and standing upon a large, dilapidated book, 

 such as were made two or three hundred years ago. The idea of 

 the artist was to represent an ancient historian, with his record 

 of colonial times brought down to date. The crow is a very 

 bright and wise bird, long-lived — a century or more — and could 

 it .speak our language it could doubtless tell us many things 

 which would be interesting to hear. A little back of the speaker's 

 house is a grove of evergreen trees, in which are the homes of 

 about eight crows all the year round. Alike in summer and 

 winter their cheerful notes ring out even when no other living 

 thing can be heard, making the gloom of winter brighter. There 

 they build their nests and rear their young every year ; but though 

 he never knew of any person destroying a nest or killing a bird, 

 the number remains the same from year to year, the young, proba- 

 bly, being sent away to colonize other regions, while the parent 

 birds remain. These, daily, and especially in winter, fly over to 

 the beach to feast upon dead clams and other refuse from the sea. 



Mr. Terry's observation as to robins is that they feed, not upon 

 insects as the essay has it, but upon earthworms, angle-worms, 

 cut-worms, etc. True they take some cherries, and where there 

 are but few grown they will take all ; but if there is a great 

 abundance they will not seem to diminish the quantity much, and 

 as a Connecticut writer says, "Who can grudge them a few 

 cherries as a relish with the worms they destroy for our benefit?" 

 And who can describe their wakiug-up carols iu the first blush of 



