AMERICAN CROW 241 



May 13, 1860. See two crows pursuing and diving at 

 a hen-hawk very high in the air over the river. He is 

 steadily circling and rising. While they, getting above, 

 dive down toward him, passing within a foot or two, mak- 

 ing a feint, he merely winks, as it were, bends or jerks his 

 wings slightly as if a little startled, but never ceases 

 soaring, nor once turns to pursue or shake them off. It 

 seemed as if he was getting uncomfortably high for them. 



Oct. 6, 1860. As I go over the hill, I see a large 

 flock of crows on the dead white oak and on the ground 

 under the living one. I find the ground strewn with white 

 oak acorns, and many of these have just been broken in 

 two, and their broken shells are strewn about, so that I 

 suppose the crows have been eating them. Some are 

 merely scratched, as if they had been pecked at without 

 being pierced ; also there are two of the large swamp 

 white oak acorn-cups joined together dropped under this 

 oak, perhaps by a crow, maybe a quarter of a mile from 

 its tree, and that probably across the river. Probably 

 a crow had transported one or more swamp white oak 

 acorns this distance. They must have been too heavy for 

 a jay. 



The crow, methinks, is our only large bird that hovers 

 and circles about in flocks in an irregular and straggling 

 manner, filling the air over your head and sporting in 

 it as if at home here. They often burst up above the 

 woods where they were perching, like the black frag- 

 ments of a powder-mill just exploded. 



One crow lingers on a limb of the dead oak till I am 

 within a dozen rods. There is strong and blustering 

 northwest wind, and when it launches off to follow its 



