AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 117 



No other offense in his long catalogue of misdemeanors and crimes 

 has earned him more deserved enmity or stimulated more relentless 

 persecution than his warfare upon game birds. Sportsmen may truth- 

 fully be called his enemies of the superlative degree. 



Whose blood would not boil at the sight, and who would not long for 

 a weapon to reek summary vengeance upon the clamoring Crows 

 that pounce upon, tear asunder, and beat the life out of an unoffending 

 victim, and especially when the unoffending victim is the highly prized 

 game bird? Such were my thoughts and such my sentiments while out 

 trout fishing during the past season, when I witnessed such a tragedy, 

 which I will briefly relate that it may throw additional light upon the 

 true character of the Crow; and I shall regard it with complacency if the 

 relation of what came under my personal observation serves to stimu- 

 late recruits to join the army which makes successful warfare upon these 

 black marauders. 



Journeying beside the brook through a piece of woodland a great 

 commotion was heard among some crows a little distance away, and I 

 concluded that some of their young had fallen out of their nest, or that 

 the young brood had for the first time used their wings in flight, which 

 is always a time of great concern to parent birds. As I proceeded their 

 clamor grew in intensity and volume, out of all proportion to their num- 

 bers. 



Arriving at a road in the woods, which was used for hauling out tim- 

 ber and lumber, I saw at a little distance away a great commotion 

 among some half dozen or more crows; some darting hither and thither, 

 — some flying upwards, then wheeling around and darting down again, 

 — all intent upon attacking a seeming enemy, and all doing their utmost 

 to add to the general din. 



I approached quite near to them before they heeded my presence, 

 when the more timid took flight to the nearest tree tops and became in- 

 terested spectators. One, more brave than the rest, was not to be 

 driven away, but kept striking with his beak and tearing feathers and 

 flesh from his victim; nor did he desist and take flight until my hand 

 was within three feet of him, when he reluctantly beat an unwilling re- 

 treat. 



There before me lay gasping in the death struggle, a Ruffed Grouse 

 hen, from the neck and back of which nearly all the feathers and flesh 

 were stripped and torn away. Death came as a relief in a few minutes 

 and ended the tragedy, unless perchance a brood of young were left to 

 die of starvation or otherwise. dp. George mcAleer. 



