CROW. 87 



stratagem : A live crow is pinned by the wings down to the 

 ground on his back, by means of two sharp, forked sticks. 

 Thus situated, his cries are loud and incessant, particularly 

 if any other crows are within view. These sweeping down 

 about him, are instantly grappled by the prostrate prisoner, 

 by the same instinctive impulse that urges a drowning person 

 to grasp at everything within his reach. Having disengaged 

 the game from his clutches, the trap is again ready for another 

 experiment ; and by pinning down each captive, successively, 

 as soon as taken, in a short time you will probably have a 

 large flock screaming above you, in concert with the outrageous 

 prisoners below. Many farmers, however, are content with 

 hanging up the skins, or dead carcasses, of crows in their corn 

 fields, in terrorem ; others depend altogether on the gun, 

 keeping one of their people supplied with ammunition, and 

 constantly on the look out. In hard winters the crows suffer 

 severely ; so that they have been observed to fall down in the 

 fields, and on the roads, exhausted with cold and hunger. In 

 one of these winters, and during a long continued deep snow, 

 more than six hundred crows were shot on the carcass of a 

 dead horse, which was placed at a proper distance from the 

 stable, from a hole of which the discharges were made. The 

 preniums awarded for these, with the price paid for the quills, 

 produced nearly as much as the original value of the horse, 

 besides, as the man himself assured me, saving feathers suffix 

 cient for filling a bed. 



The crow is easily raised and domesticated ; and it is only 

 when thus rendered unsuspicious of, and placed on terms of 

 familiarity with man, that the true traits of his genius and 

 native disposition fully develop themselves. In this state he 

 soon learns to distinguish all the members of the family ; Hies 

 towards the gate, screaming, at the approach of a stranger ; 

 ]earns to open the door by alighting on the latch; attends 

 regularly at the stated hours of dinner and breakfast, which 

 he appears punctually to recollect; is extremely noisy and 

 loquacious; imitates the sound of various words pretty 



