138 WAKE-ROBIN 
All parks and public grounds about the city are 
full of blackbirds. They are especially plentiful in 
the trees about the White House, breeding there 
and waging war on all other birds. The occupants 
of one of the offices in the west wing of the Treasury 
one day had their attention attracted by some object 
striking violently against one of the window-panes. 
Looking up, they beheld a crow blackbird pausing 
in midair, a few feet from the window. On the 
broad stone window-sill lay the quivering form of a 
purple finch. The little tragedy was easily read, 
The blackbird had pursued the finch with such 
murderous violence that the latter, in its desperate 
efforts to escape, had sought refuge in the Treasury. 
The force of the concussion against the heavy plate- 
glass of the window had killed the poor thing in- 
stantly. The pursuer, no doubt astonished at the 
sudden and novel termination of the career of its 
victim, hovered a moment, as if to be sure of what 
had happened, and made off. 
(It is not unusual for birds, when thus threatened , 
with destruction by their natural enemy, to become | 
so terrified as to seek safety in the presence of man. — 
I was once startled, while living in a country vil- | 
lage, to behold, on entering my room at noon, one; 
October day, a quail sitting upon my bed. The 
affrighted and bewildered bird instantly started for \ 
the open window, into which it had no doubt been 
driven by a hawk.) 
The crow blackbird has all the natural cunning 
of his prototype, the crow. In one of the inner 
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