Crow - fVays. 1 05 



with that beautiful, regular motion that seems like the 

 practice drill of all gregarious birds, and generally end 

 by collecting in some tree at a distance and hawing 

 about it for hours, till some new excitement calls 

 them elsewhere. 



Just why they grow so excited over an owl is an 

 open c|uestion. I have never seen them molest him, 

 nor show any tendency other than to stare at him 

 occasionally and make a great noise about it. That 

 they recognize him as a thief and cannibal I have no 

 doubt. But he thieves by night when other birds are 

 abed, and as they practise their own thieving by open 

 daylight, it may be that they are denouncing him as 

 an impostor. Or it may be that the owl in his nightly 

 prowlings sometimes snatches a young crow off the 

 roost. The great horned owl would hardly hesitate 

 to eat an old crow if he could catch him napping ; 

 and so they grow excited, as all birds do in the pres- 

 ence of their natural enemies. They make much the 

 same kind of a fuss over a hawk, though the latter 

 easily escapes the annoyance by flying swiftly away, 

 or by circling slowly upward to a height so dizzy that 

 the crows dare not follow. 



In the early spring I have utilized this habit of the 

 crows in my search for owls' nests. The crows are 

 much more apt to discover its whereabouts than the 

 most careful ornithologist, and they gather about it 



