i6o Bird -Lore 



extremely wild nature of the common Crow, this is very remarkable. I 

 remember once sitting at an open window, and hearing the peculiar cry King 

 Cole always gave when frightened. He presently swooped in at the window 

 with a wild Crow in full chase — who actually only turned back when I 

 sprang up and waved my hands — positively 'shooing' him away. I was 

 as badly frightened as King Cole, who meanwhile lost no time in scrambling 

 beneath the spfa — for the stranger yvas a big, fierce fellow with glittering 

 black eyes, and was snapping his great beak furiously. 



When he finally beat a retreat, it was only to a tree not more than 

 twenty feet from the house, where he staye.d for some time, watching the 

 window and clamoring angrily. 



King Cole was very fond of going with us into the woods or fields to 

 gather berries, and the way he would keep his weather eye open for his 

 enemies was a caution. If he sighted one, in the distance, or heard a 'caw' 

 overhead, he would come scrambling to us and creep under our pinafores, 

 with little crooning utterances. From this safe retreat, he would poke his 

 head cautiously out to rake the sky, first with one eye and then with the 

 other, in search of his foes. 



I remember a very funny thing that happened one day. We were 

 gathering strawberries, and there was an old woman some distance from us 

 picking away industriously — her wide-brimmed straw hat covering her shoul- 

 ders. A bird's-eye view must have shown little else than hat, I fancy. I 

 don't know what King Cole thought it was, but he dropped straight upon 

 it with a couple of ear-piercing ' caws,' and over the old body went with a 

 smothered howl of terror. Afraid to move, she lay stiffly with her feet 

 half way up the side of a little knoll, her hands before her eyes fearing to 

 behold the monster from the sky. We ran to help her up, explaining, and, 

 when we got her on her feet, found she had fallen on her basket of berries, 

 and her light-colored calico dress was stained with their juice, from her 

 head to her heels, a sight to behold ! We looked about for the author of 

 the mischief, and there he was ! Snuggled beneath the hat as quiet as a 

 mouse, hoping, no doubt, to hide until the trouble blew over. We got the 

 worst of it in the end, however, and were obliged to beat a hasty retreat, 

 with King Cole wrapped up in Meg's apron to save him from the wrath of 

 the assaulted one, who gave us a very plain piece of her mind about keeping 

 "sich creeters araound "! 



Before long, we began to hear a great many complaints of our pet. One 

 neighbor declared he had come in her window one morning and flown ofif 

 with her tooth-brush; another, that she had found him in her kitchen 

 with his legs embedded in a batch of bread -dough, which she had put 

 to rise by the fire. Had she not been a tender-hearted soul, he would 

 have met his death then and there. However, it was not long after this 

 that he disappeared, and, though we looked and inquired everywhere, it 



