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^wCrouylOays 



The crows give him up reluctantly. They 

 circle for a few minutes over the grove, 

 rising and falling with that beautiful, regular 

 motion that seems like the practice drill of 

 all gregarious birds, and generally end by 

 collecting in some tree at a distance and 

 hawing about it for hours, till some new 

 excitement calls them elsewhere. 



Just why they grow so excited over an owl 

 is an open question. I have never seen 

 them molest him, nor show any tendency 

 other than to stare at him occasionally and 

 make a great noise about it. That they rec- 

 ognize him as a thief and cannibal I have no 

 doubt. But he thieves by night when other 

 birds are abed, and as they practise their own 

 thieving by open daylight, it may be that 

 they are denouncing him as an impostor. 

 Or it may be that the owl in ' his nightly 

 prowlings sometimes snatches a young crow 

 off the roost ; and so they grow excited, as 

 all birds do, in the presence of their natural 

 enemy. They make much the same kind of 

 a fuss over a hawk ; though the latter easily 

 escapes the annoyance by flying swiftly 



