154 Birds Every Child Should Know 
you may be very sure, and puts a price on the 
robber’s head. Yet he knows that corn, dipped 
in tar before it is put in the ground, will be 
left alone to sprout. But who is clever enough 
to keep the crows out of the field in autumn? 
How humiliated would humans feel if they 
realised what these knowing birds must think 
of us when we set up in our cornfields the 
absurd-looking scares they so calmly ignore! 
Some crows I know ate every kernel off every 
ear around the scare-crow in a neighbour’s 
field, but touched no stalk very far from it, as 
much as to say: “We take your dare along 
with your corn, Mr. Silly. If the ox that 
treadeth out his corn is entitled to his share 
of it, ought not we, who saved it from grass- 
hoppers, cutworms, May beetles and other 
pests, be sharers in the profits?” Granted; 
but what about eating the farmer’s young 
chickens and turkeys as well as the eggs and 
babies of little song birds ? At times, it must be 
admitted, the crow’s heart is certainly as 
dark as his feathers; he is as black as he is 
painted, but happily such cannibalism is apt 
to be rare. Strange that a bird so tenderly 
devoted to his own fledglings, should be so 
heartless to others’! 
Toward the end of winter, you may see a 
pair of crows carrying sticks and trash to the 
top of some tall tree in the leafless woods, 
