AMERICAN CROW 237 



guess what he wanted the crow for. So Wyman took 

 the crow and the next time he went into town he tossed 

 him over the wall into the corn-field and then shot him, 

 and, carrying the dead crow to Jones, he got his half- 

 bushel of rye. 



Oct. 29/1857. A flock of about eighty crows flies 

 ramblingly over toward the sowing, cawing and loiter- 

 ing and making a great ado, apparently about nothing. 



Nov. 18, 1857. Crows will often come flying much 

 out of their way to caw at me. 



Jan. 18, 1859. P. M. — Up Assabet to bridge. 



Two or more inches of snow fell last night. In the 

 expanse this side Mantatuket Rock I see the tracks of 

 a crow or crows in and about the button-bushes and 

 willows. They have trampled and pecked much in some 

 spots under the button-bushes where these seeds are still 

 left and dibbled into the snow by them. It would seem, 

 then, that they eat them. The only other seeds there 

 can be there are those of the mikania, for I look for 

 them. You will see a crow's track beginning in the 

 middle of the river, where one alighted. I notice such a 

 track as this, where one alighted, and - 



apparently struck its spread tail into J « 



the snow at the same time with its feet. V: ," • . • •• " 'C/ 

 I see afterward where a wing's quills ^»x»w«/ 

 have marked the snow much like a partridge's. The 

 snow is very light, so that the tracks are rarely dis- 

 tinct, and as they often advance by hops some might 

 mistake it for a squirrel's or mink's track. I suspect 

 that they came here yesterday after minnows when 

 the fishermen were gone, and that has brought them 



