20 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



this consists of corn. But the spring, summer and fall months 

 when they are rearing their young, insects of all kinds, the 

 cicada, May beetles, June beetles, and especially their larvae, 

 the well known white grubs, grasshoppers, crickets, cutworms, 

 carrion beetles, spiders and their eggs, field mice, snakes, frogs 

 and the like, constitutes the bulk of their food. One of the 

 most beautiful bird sights that I have ever witnessed was 

 that of about five hundred crows working in a meadow, hunt- 

 ing for the white grub which is so injurious to our meadows 

 and all kind of vegetables. They commenced at one side of 

 the meadow and worked it over with a leader in a V shape. 

 At Somerleaze I have often seen them singly and in flocks do- 

 ing the same thing. They have not disturbed our growing 

 corn. Longfellow was right when he wrote: 



"You call them thieves and pillagers; but know, 



They are the winged wardens of your farms, 

 Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, 



And from your harvests keep a hundred harms. 

 Even the blackest of them all, the crow, 



Renders good service as your man-at-arms, 

 Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail, 

 And crying havoc on the slug and snail." 



The flight of the crow is strong and vigorous. He seldom 

 flies high and especially when the wind blows, he flies very 

 low. This calls to mind an incident of my childhood. Our 

 family was large and our parents of limited means. My brother 

 and I, being the oldest, were required to make ourselves use- 

 ful, both in and out of the house. Our milkhouse stood about 

 fifty feet from the northwest corner of our cabin home. 

 Across the fields to the northwest, not far away stood a hack- 

 berry tree. One morning mother put us to churning, and 

 knowing our love for hackberries, warned us that if we played 

 hookey and went to the hackberry tree, the crows would 

 come and carry us away. Notwithstanding this, we could not 

 resist the temptation to go after hackberries. We had been 

 under the tree only a few minutes when two crows came over 

 the woods and when just over the hackberry tree, the leader 

 called, "caw, caw" and both of them swooped down to avoid 

 the wind. Two boys were never worse scared than we. 



