Extracts from Diary of Otto Widmann 45 



coop. They have found out that the immediate vicinity 

 of dwellings is not only the best place for finding food, 

 but also the safest from their winged enemies, the Hawks 

 and Owls. Very few Bluejays remain in our woods in 

 winter; even such places as cemeteries are forsaken, 

 though these are favorites in nesting time. It is the 

 omnivorous nature of the Jays and Crows that helps 

 them over the hardest times. Crows were formerly the 

 most conspicuous birds in winter in the city of St. Louis, 

 when all the garbage collected in the dty was dumped 

 into the river. In the eighties they had an immense roost 

 on Arsenal Island, opposite Carondelet, and later on 

 Gabaret Island, opposite North St. Louis. In going to 

 and coming from their feeding grounds in the county 

 they had to fly over the city. While the flight from the 

 roost in the early morning was but little noticed, the 

 flight to the roost in the afternoon was a grand spectacle. 

 As early as four o'clock, in cloudy weather even much 

 earlier, troops of Crows began to come from the west, 

 flying at great heights in clear, cahn weather, but low 

 over the roofs of houses on windy or cloudy days, cross- 

 ing the city at certain points, troop following troop until 

 the passage became a continuous stream of birds, denser 

 and denser, until the sun had sunk down in the west. 

 From points of vantage one could follow the birds to the 

 island and see them alight on the sandbar that separated 

 the willow-covered interior from the water. There the 

 tliousands and thousands of Crows alighted, went to the 

 water's edge to get a drink and took a good long rest 

 before flying up to find a perch in the willows, which 

 were then forming an almost impenetrable thicket, 15 to 

 30 feet high. On these willows they spent the long win- 

 ter nights, poorly sheltered from the cold northerly and 

 westerly winds blomng over the river. 



A crow can withstand severe cold much better when the 

 feet, the most tender spot, are protected, and when too 

 cold for them in the willows they remained all night on 



