CROW BLACKBIRD. 23 



drowned by the tolling bells. Instances of their 

 quarrels with robins and other birds would fill a 

 volume, but the most interesting feud of which 

 I have heard was enacted in the garden of the 

 keen observer and botanist, Mrs. Helen M. Bagg, 

 and its progress was watched by her unnoticed, 

 as she looked out upon the participants from 

 among the flowering shrubs and vines that sur- 

 round her cottage. I quote her racy descrip- 

 tion : 



" Early one May two robins, with many mani- 

 festations of happiness, set up house-keeping in a 

 tree near the south end of my house. A few days 

 later a large flock of blackbirds alighted on the 

 trees on the north side of the yard. There had 

 been a blackbird wedding, and their friends had 

 escorted them hither with the laudable intention 

 of finding a suitable location for a nest for the 

 happy pair. A loud chattering and fluttering fol- 

 lowed, one advising this place, another that. At 

 length the young husband espied the broad top 

 of the water-pipe, under the eaves, and settled on 

 that as a most secure and suitable home for his 

 bride. The wedding guests, with the satisfaction 

 that comes from the consciousness of having per- 

 formed one's duty, took their departure, leaving 

 the blissful couple to the uninterrupted enjoyment 

 of their own society. Ah ! who could have fore- 

 told 4 on night so fair, such awful morn' could 

 rise?" 



