The Audubon Hocieties. 
SCHOOL DEPARTMENT 
Edited by MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 
Address all communications to the Editor of the School Department, National 
Association of Audubon Societies, 141 Broadway, New York City 
TWO PROBLEMS IN BIRD PROTECTION — 
CATS AND CROWS 
cle \HE song birds are comparatively safe from men and boys, this spring,” 
wrote one of our most active game wardens last week, “but cats and 
Crows form a problem that yet remains to be solved.” . 
Cats and Crows! I heaved a sigh, not of sentiment but of real despair; for it is 
not only in wild woods and comparatively unprotected meadows and brush lots 
that the wake of these two arch marauders is marked by empty nests. Here in 
my garden, within twenty rods of the door, I had just found a Crow’s nest in 
one of the spruces, from which fortress, to break the tedium of sitting, the Crows 
were making squab-hunting excursions in the garden, even venturing in early 
morning to rob a nest in the piazza vines, within plain view of my window. 
Crows are bird outlaws in all agricultural regions, and are nowhere protected, 
even if there is no price set upon their heads. Why then are there Crows? 
Because they possess cunning in proportion to the apparent stupidity of their 
appearance, and they have learned the art of self-protection in the school of 
adversity. As family birds and rulers of their own social communities, there is 
much to admire in the Crow; but, outside of this commune, they are utterly 
objectionable. 
Their military tactics and scouting abilities are used to enable them to 
place their bulky nests in the most invisible places; but you will, if you study the 
matter carefully, find that the nest is most conveniently located near a song-bird- 
squab market, where, the moment the parent Robin or Thrush leaves the nest, 
the Crow’s black shadow falls, and egg or bird are equally its prey. 
It should be the duty of every bird lover to search out the Crow haunts of 
his neighborhood, and, if it is impossible to shoot the old birds, to destroy the 
nest as soon as the eggs are laid. The male members of various bird clubs can 
do a great service by watching Crow roosts at the spring break-up, and locating 
the various pairs as they separate. 
As to the Crow’s place in unnature in its dawn, I am not prepared to argue; 
but in our rural midst he becomes a tramp of birddom, and must be forcibly 
requested to “move on.” 
As to the other C—cats—the problem is infinitely more complex; for there are 
many shrewd people who have not a word to say in defence of the corn thief, 
who will not hear a word against the cat, the bird hunter by heredity, that even as 
(122) 
