NATURAL HISTORY. 



379 



sorry circumstances debar me from making 

 the attempt myself; but I should be glad to 

 give any assistance in my power toward the 

 getting out of a book of this nature. We 

 ought to have correct representations of 

 the eyes of those of our fauna, or any other 

 fauna, fast nearing extinction. 



Percy Selous, Greenville, Mich. 



BAD HABITS OF SOME CROWS. 



I noticed in July Recreation the request 

 for facts concerning the crow as a game de- 

 stroyer. We all know the crow is not essen- 

 tially carnivorous, but he has so much curi- 

 osity and so great an appetite, that he some- 

 times yields to temptations and tastes things 

 outside of his natural bill of fare. _ In this 

 way he acquires the habit of destroying eggs 

 and young birds. I once owned a tame crow 

 that would eat anything I gave it— meat, 

 eggs, bread, grain or fruit _ When it was 

 grown it became such a nuisance I had to 

 kill it. It would fight a sitting hen off of her 

 nest and eat the eggs, if possible. Those it 

 could not eat it would destroy. I have 

 known it to eat young chickens, a day or 2 

 old. I thought this was due only to its early 

 training and therefore blamed myself, until 

 I saw a wild crow fly off with a small chick- 

 en in its mouth. I kept watch over the 

 mother hen and her brood the next day, 

 and at about the same hour as on the day 

 before, the crow came for another chicken, 

 but received a charge of shot instead. For 

 several years thereafter I studied the crow 

 and found they not only robbed nests of 

 game and song birds, but I often saw them 

 find our guinea nests and eat the eggs. Un- 

 der some crows' nests I have found feathers 

 of young birds or chickens, also egg shells 

 of various sizes, shapes and colors. I have 

 examined other crows' nests that were free 

 from any of these tell-tale signs. I am sure 

 the L. A. S. would gain the everlasting grat- 

 itude of farmers everywhere, if it would 

 bring about the enactment of a law for a 

 bounty on each crow killed. 



William A. Bruce. 



CARNIVOROUS RED SQUIRRELS. 



Brockport, N. Y. 



Editor Recreation: Last week I was vis- 

 iting a farmer 2 miles from here. I asked his 

 wife what success she had with her chick- 

 ens. She said, " Not good, for the red 

 squirrels have been troublesome; they took 

 6 of the last brood during the past week." 



I asked if she was certain red squirrels 

 were the culprits. The farmer then said, 

 " I was born on this farm 63 years ago, and 

 have lived on it ever since. No one knows 

 more about squirrels and such animals than 

 I do. Sometimes there are quite a number 

 of squirrels around, and they don't seem 1»o 

 interfere with the chickens at all. At times 

 a squirrel will take to chicken killing and 

 then he is as bad as a weasel, perhaps worse; 



for squirrels hunt by day when the chicks 

 are wandering around. I shot a female squir- 

 rel last week just as she had taken a chicken 

 from the coop. Three days after, a male 

 squirrel, that had been chattering around all 

 the morning, killed another chick and began 

 to eat it. My wife chased him away, put 

 the partly eaten chicken in a cage rat trap 

 and caught the squirrel within 2 hours. We 

 left him in the trap awhile, and the little 

 beggar ate up the chicken before we killed 

 him. I sometimes think they take to killing 

 birds out of pure cussedness. But it is only 

 occasionally that squirrels are any trouble 

 in the poultry yard. Perhaps the absence of 

 nuts, berries or corn in the spring may force 

 them to seek animal food. All I know is 

 they are bold and destructive when they once 

 acquire the carnivorous habit." 



David Bruce. 



BIRD DESTRUCTION IN THE SOUTH. 



Editor Recreation: Man, in this local- 

 ity, is the bird's greatest enemy. Birds are 

 regarded, in upper South Carolina, merely 

 as " something to shoot at." I suppose it is 

 the same over most of the South. Boy is 

 the bird's worst enemy. He begins his 

 slaughter as soon as he can use a sling-shot 

 and continues it with air-gun and parlor 

 rifle until he reaches the shotgun stage. Each 

 boy reasons that the few birds he kills will 

 not perceptibly reduce the supply, and for- 

 gets there are nearly as many boys as birds. 

 I knew one boy who in one day killed over 

 30 goldfinches, with an air-gun. During 

 nesting time birds suffer greatly. They are 

 robbed of eggs and young, and the parent 

 birds are often shot while on the nest. A 

 favorite method is to catch a young bird 

 and make it cry until the parents are drawn 

 within range. The negro and the " hunter " 

 are great destroyers of bird life. They shoot 

 anything from a humming bird to a buz- 

 zard. They go out to shoot, and as long as 

 they have any ammunition, woe to every- 

 thing with feathers that comes in their way. 

 Robins and blackbirds are here considered 

 game, and are killed whenever the chance 

 offers. There are laws in this State to pro- 

 tect birds, but, with all this destruction go- 

 ing on, I have never known of an arrest 

 for their violation. Unless the slaughter is 

 soon stopped our woods and fields will lose 

 their greatest charm. 



J. R. Nowell, Postman Shoals, S. C. 



WHERE ARE THE PIGEONS? 



I was much interested in Mr. Koon's ar- 

 ticle on *' The Passing of the Pigeon." I 

 never saw the wild pigeon alive but twice 

 in my 30 years of existence. In North 

 central Arkansas I saw flocks of 5 and 16 

 on consecutive days in 1889. I mounted 

 one for a patron in Indiana in 1885 or 1886. 

 When hearing accounts of how pigeons were 

 formerly slaughtered, by the wagon load, I 

 have often wondered whether this was the 



