CORRESPONDENCE 
~~ Information 
and 
Nature Notes from Cedar Heights. 
Stamford, Connecticut. 
To the Editor : 
My eyrie home, surrounded by na- 
ture, “and nothing else,’’ gives me some 
advantages in watching the birds, etc. 
I have watched often a bevy of crows 
annoying a hawk, chasing him from 
tree to tree, cawing at him and making 
feints to strike him. but paying great 
respect to the reach of his sharp beak 
and claws. 
Usually the hawk sits in silent scorn 
waiting for the crows to tire out and 
disappear. But recently I saw a hawk 
scatter a big flock of these black teasers 
by the sheer force of his angry onset. 
Evidently the crows were pestering 
one hawk near by in the woods when 
its mate, losing patience, started from 
a distance, and flying rather low over 
me, scattered the whole black flock by 
his furious charge. I think I never saw 
a bird fly so fast, probably seventy 
miles an hour at least, and he screamed 
with terrifying anger as he went, 
straight as a rifle bullet, at the bunch 
of crows. 
Another phase of bird life, a peace- 
ful and beautiful phase, was when hun- 
dreds of crows and starlings took a no- 
tion to stage an aerial dance together. 
Both birds will often gather by them- 
selves in flocks and go through grace- 
ful evolutions, gyrations and spirals, 
but this time the crows and starlings 
rehearsed together, the smaller and the 
larger birds cutting across each other’s 
orbits in a most beautiful aerial dance, 
somewhat as if a whirlwind had caught 
a few thousand leaves, large and small, 
and whirled them aloft in intermingling 
circles. 
Charles H. Craxdall. 
Remarkable Snake Story. 
Cincinnati, Ohio. 
To the Editor: 
When I was between the ages of 
four and eighteen years, I spent every 
summer on a farm in Clermont County, 
Ohio. My hobby was guns and I was 
always prowling around the creeks, 
woods and places where animals and 
reptiles abound. One sunny afternoon 
1 and two other boys were walking up 
the creek hunting green frogs when I 
came upon two dead water moccasins 
(snakes). One had swallowed the 
other for 1 could see the tail sticking 
out of the mouth of one. I pulled out 
the snake, making note which one had 
done the swallowing, and the smaller 
snake had swallowed another snake 
four inches longer than itself. I sur- 
mised that they had been fighting and 
the little one had been the more fortu- 
nate; therefore one was smothered and 
the little one choked by the tail of the 
larger. 
1 his piece of narration is poor, but I 
assure you my story is absolutely true 
as well as my observation. If this is 
anything new to you — which I doubt — 
I am only too glad. 
Yours respectfully, 
Alfred R. Hill. 
1 he Moose Hill Bird Sanctuary in 
Sharon, Massachusetts, last year regis- 
tered nearly three thousand visitors, as 
against thirteen hundred the year be- 
fore. 
The Youthful Fir. 
Arrow-straight it stands among 
The spruces on the ledge, 
Where rythmic roll of waves is heard 
Just below the edge. 
A striking contrast are its leaves 
And smoothly rounded bole. 
With balsam blisters through its length, 
Of which we take our toll. 
And at the top, in contrast, too, 
The tall, upstanding cones, 
(With sparkling nectar brimming o’er) 
In deeper, purplish tones. 
One of a goodly company, 
Crownmg the cliffs with green, 
And making this far northern shore 
Among the fairest seen. 
— Emma Peirce. 
