CROW. 



85 



around, the Crows rise in great uproar, and amidst the general 

 consternation, by the light of the burnings, hundreds of them are 

 shot down. 



Crows have been employed to catch Crows by the following 

 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 in- 

 stantly grappled by the prostrate prisoner, by the same instinctive 

 impulse that urges a drowning person to grasp at every thing with- 

 in 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 carcases, of Crows in 

 their cornfields, by way of 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 se- 

 verely, 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 carcase of a dead horse, which 

 was placed at a proper distance from the stable, from a hole of 

 which the discharges were made. The premiums 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 as- 

 sured me, saving feathers sufficient 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 fami- 

 liarity with man, that the true traits of his genius and native dis- 

 position fully develope themselves. In this state he soon learns 

 to distinguish all the members of the family; flies towards the gate, 



VOL. IV. Y 



