38 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



He loved to plague human beings, also. Here his 

 method was simple, but to a stranger at least highly- 

 effective. It consisted of perching on a low-hanging 

 limb of the big maple in the dooryard and dropping 

 suddenly down upon the head of the unsuspecting 

 caller. Once he had accomplished his purpose, he 

 would fly back to the limb and sit there emitting 

 sounds which it required no imagination whatever 

 to construe as chortles of glee. But, among fre- 

 quent visitors to the house, and among the regular 

 occupants as well, he soon learned who were the 

 ones that his actions annoyed, and confined his 

 attentions to them, just as a small boy will jump 

 from behind the corner with a loud "Boo!" only at 

 the little girls who scream with terror. Jim had a 

 particular victim of the timid sex from whose hair 

 he used to extract the hairpins whenever he had the 

 chance, flying off with one in his claws and uttering 

 cries of diabolical glee. He never took hairpins 

 from anybody else. 



Jim — like all tame crows that I have ever had any- 

 thing to do with — in spite of his evident desire for 

 human companionship, never really showed any 

 affection. It was as if those gregarious instincts 

 which have made the crow family so successful in 

 the evolutionary struggle were merely perverted a 

 little, and Jim flocked with us. Often he would 

 hop upon the window-sill when the family were 

 inside, and peck at the pane, uttering his queer 

 gibber of low caws and crow talk; but it was merely 

 to induce somebody to come out and pay attention 

 to him. He would let you stroke him on the head — 

 would even beg you to, in fact; but that was merely 



