The Crow Birds 
abreast of the workers and pulling up a stem and 
scratching a little at each hill. One day he tried to 
help his master weed the onion bed but he was not 
very discriminating between weeds and onions, and 
was driven off. Indignant at this treatment, he 
waited until the coast was clear, and returned to 
finish the job, by pulling up every onion in the 
bed. 
Billy was the special comrade of a little boy, with 
whom he was fond of playing marbles. The boy 
would shoot a marble into a hole, and then Billy 
would take a marble in his beak and go and drop it in 
the hole. Thus they would play turn and turn about 
for hours of the day. Billy was always very angry 
if the boy insisted on shooting his marble out of turn. 
Billy also learned to talk the language of the chicken 
yard. He was especially proficient in making the 
noise which the hen makes when calling her chickens 
to food. Billy would put his beak down to the 
ground in imitation of the hen, give the call, and 
then, when the overgrown chickens came rushing to 
seize the tid-bit, he would take a mouthful of feath- 
ers out of the back of the nearest one and go off 
chuckling to himself. Billy also learned to imitate 
the call to dinner. 
HOUSE 
The crow should not be confined in a cage, but 
should, with a clipped wing, be allowed freedom of 
the grounds and barn. It will consort with the hens 
if allowed, and make itself generally at home. 
When confined in a cage the crow is a very dirty 
bird, and the cage ill-smelling despite reasonable 
efforts to clean it. 
165 
