CROW. 125 



in Europe, have neglected to offer rewards for their destruction. In 

 the United States they have been repeatedly ranked in our laws with the 

 wolves, the panthers, foxes and squirrels, and a proportionable premium 

 offered for their heads, to be paid by any justice of the peace to whom 

 they are delivered. On all these accounts various modes have been 

 invented for capturing them. They have been taken in clap-nets com- 

 monly used for taking pigeons ; two or three live Crows being previously 

 procured as decoys, or as they are called Stool-crows. Corn has been 

 steeped in a strong decoction of hellebore, which when eaten by them 

 produces giddiness, and finally, it is said, death. Pieces of paper, 

 formed into the shape of a hollow cone, besmeared within with birdlime, 

 and a grain or two of corn dropped on the bottom, have also been 

 adopted. Numbers of these being placed on the ground, where corn 

 has been planted, the Crows attempting to reach the grains are instantly 

 hoodwinked, fly directly upwards to a great height ; but generally 

 descend near the spot whence they rose, and are easily taken. The 

 reeds of their roosting places are sometimes set on fire during a dark 

 night, and the gunners having previously posted themselves around, the 

 Crows rise in great uproar, and amidst the general consternation, by 

 the light of the burnings, hundreds of them are shot down. 



Crows have been employed to catch Crows, by the following stratagem. 

 A live crow is pinned by the wings down to the ground on his back, 

 by means of two sharp, forked sticks. Thus situated, his cries are 

 loud and incessant, particularly if any other Crows are within view. 

 These sweeping down about him, are instantly grappled by the prostrate 

 prisoner, by the same instinctive impulse that urges a drowning person 

 to grasp at everything within his reach. Having disengaged the game 

 from his clutches, the trap is again ready for another experiment ; and 

 by pinning down each captive, successively, as soon as taken, in a short 

 time you will probably have a large flock screaming above you, in con- 

 cert with the outrageous prisoners below. Many farmers, however, are 

 content with hanging up the skins, or dead carcasses, of Crows, in their 

 corn-fields by way of terrorem ; others depend altogether on the gun, 

 keeping one of their people supplied with ammunition, and constantly 

 on the lookout. In hard winters, the Crows suffer severely, so that 

 they have been observed to fall down in the fields, and on the roads, 

 exhausted with cold and hunger. In one of these winters, and during 

 a long-continued deep snow, more than six hundred Crows were shot on 

 the carcass of a dead horse, which was placed at a proper distance from 

 the stable, from a hole of which the discharges were made. The pre- 

 miums awarded for these, with the price paid for the quills, produced 

 nearly as much as the original value of the horse, besides, as the man 

 himself assured me, saving feathers sufficient for filling a bed. 



The Crow is easily raised and domesticated ; and it is only when thu8 



