JIM CROW 43 



cruelty that they sometimes prey on the eggs and 

 young of other birds. They are simply after food. 

 A year or two ago I passed through Niagara in 

 midwinter and stopped over a day to ride through 

 the gorge below the Falls in order to see the superb 

 spectacle of the great ice-cakes tossing and grinding 

 in the whirl and chop of the rapids. After the first 

 narrow rush of the river was over and the stream 

 widened and grew comparatively calm, I was 

 amazed to see almost every ice-cake bearing a black 

 rider. At first I could not trust my eyes, and asked 

 a native if those riders were crows. He assured me 

 that they were, and that they were fishing for 

 scraps in the water. I watched the birds for nearly 

 an hour, and he was quite right. They were fishing 

 for scraps of food, and it was easier and probably 

 safer to fish from the edge of an ice-cake than to fly 

 low over this turbulent current, where the waves 

 were uncertain in their sudden up-jump, and in 

 zero weather when wet feathers meant an ice-coat. 

 The surrounding country lay two feet deep in snow, 

 so that food was probably very scarce. But here, 

 on this stream that never freezes, floated the refuse 

 of the towns just above, and the crows knew it. 

 They rode their ice-cakes in countless numbers — 

 thousands upon thousands of them, and their black 

 bodies winged up out of the gorge against the white 

 Canadian slopes. They were for the most part 

 silent, however, though now and then a faint caw 

 came over the titanic hiss of the rapids. It seemed 

 to me as convincing a demonstration as I had ever 

 seen of the crow's intelligent adaptability to a 

 changing environment. 



