144 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
Nothing, however, can stop the clamor of a 
hungry little crow. You dangle a nice fat grub 
in front of him, and he opens a yawning cavity 
of mouth and says, in a raucous, strident, im- 
patient tone,“ Caw!” ‘Then you drop the grub in 
his mouth, and he keeps right on cawing, but swal- - 
lowing at the same time, so that it sounds some- 
thing like this—‘‘ Caw-w-obble, obble, obble.” 
As soon as the grub is down, his mouth opens 
again and he crossly insists on more. 
But the big man was wise. He knew that if 
you give a baby crow all it wants to eat, it will 
gorge itself into an untimely grave. So Jim and 
Jim and Jim were taught to leave the table hun- 
gry, as it were, and they throve on this involun- 
tary self-denial. Soon a perch had to be put in 
half-way up the barrel, and before very long they 
were all three up on the rim, and then down on 
the ground, and the big man’s son expected to 
see them fly away. 
But they didn’t fly away, not even after they 
had taught themselves to take the air. The big 
man’s wife sometimes wished, perhaps, that they 
would, but they didn’t. Sometimes they sailed 
