42 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



head, sat there for nearly half an hour, replying sar- 

 castically to her threats. He used to come to meet 

 his master almost every day when school was out, 

 again telling the time by some instinct as mysterious 

 as a dog's, and either riding home on his master's 

 shoulder or else flying along ahead, lighting on the 

 fence-posts. It was the same crow, too, who got 

 into the house, upset a bottle of ink, investigated the 

 contents with his feet, and then walked on the bed- 

 spread. It was a seven-day wonder in the neigh- 

 borhood that, because of his master's pleading, his 

 life was spared. The youngsters looked with a 

 kind of awe upon a boy who could put up such a 

 case to his justly irate parents. Demosthenes 

 seemed, by comparison, rather second-rate. 



The same little boy, curiously enough, in after- 

 years became connected for a time with the Zoologi- 

 cal Gardens in Washington, where they had a large 

 cage containing crows. It had been the habit to 

 feed these crows corn, that supposedly being their 

 staple diet, though it might have occurred to the 

 keepers that the crow in its natural state can secure 

 corn but for a week or two in late May, and possibly 

 for a time at harvest. At any rate, they had been 

 dying off regularly, constant fresh recruits being 

 necessary. But when the former owner of the mis- 

 chievous Jim arrived he spoke out of his experience, 

 and declared that crows like meat and probably 

 need it. The other keepers laughed at him, but he 

 fed these birds meat, none the less, and the deaths 

 ceased. It is apparent to any observer that crows are 

 by nature meat-eaters, and in captivity they appear 

 to prefer a meat diet. It is not from any wanton 



