28 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



grasshoppers, and white grubs probably counter- 

 balances to a very considerable extent, if not en- 

 tirely, his destructive instincts toward the eggs and 

 young of other birds. The most that the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, in its famous 

 Farmers' Bulletin 54, will say is that "a reduction 

 in its numbers in localities where it is seriously 

 destructive is justifiable." But does any one love 

 the crow? Has any one thought how much poorer, 

 less characteristic, our landscape would be were he 

 exterminated? We have sent our sluggards to the 

 ant for instruction, but have we considered the crow, 

 adept in co-operation, intelligently gregarious, with 

 what the Farmers' Bulletin calls "the social in- 

 stinct" highly developed? It would seem that our 

 New England farmers, at any rate, have much to 

 learn from this despised bird! One man, of course, 

 appreciated him — Thoreau; but he appreciated 

 everything in our native fields and forests. And I 

 doubt not that every man who as a boy once had a 

 pet crow loves still the entire species and finds a 

 wistful music in their call. 



A pet crow's name is always Jim, regardless of 

 sex. Just why that is those wiser in folk-lore than 

 I will have to answer. Even the famous jackdaw of 

 the now-ill-fated Rheims became Saint Jim when he 

 died a penitent, did he not? The name must have 

 come over the water with our ancestors. Like the 

 jackdaw, too, the crow's middle name is always mis- 

 chief. The process of catching and taming a crow 

 is not difficult — if you have somebody to climb the 

 tree for you. As the crows almost invariably nest 

 in the tallest white-pine trees, particularly those in 



