MOORE'S RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
and both sexes incubate, their parental care 
and mutual attachment being unsurpassed 
by those of almost any other bird. Two 
nests are seldom or never found upon the 
same tree ; yet they build in neighborhoods, 
and all fly out to protect any nest which hap¬ 
pens to be disturbed. They become gregari¬ 
ous as soon as the breeding season is over, 
forming flocks of hundreds and even thou¬ 
sands. Towards autumn of the individuals 
and honey, &c. There has always been a 
want of something to lessen this difficulty, 
and that something is supplied in the form 
of a bee trap, which has been invented and 
made by a man named Aston, whose traps 
bear his name. They are made to allow the 
bees to pass out from the super without the 
possibility of returning to rob it. The accom¬ 
panying i9 an illustration of the bee trap. 
It has six openings to let the bees out; each 
COMMON CROW 
THE GOLDEN CARP. —(Cyprinus auratus.) 
BY ROBERT KKNNICOTT 
This beautiful pet of the glass globe and of 
the fountain, belongs to the carp family, and 
is of Chinese origin. It is said to have been 
introduced to Europe by the Portuguese, and 
after they had been received as fashionable 
guests in the ornamental waters at Versailles, 
near Paris, about 1700. they spread rapidly 
over Europe. Their brilliant scarlet in a 
crystal vase of pure water, or in an aquarium, 
makes them an attractive object in any home 
of taste. In China the wealthier classes keep 
gold fish as a matter of amusement. They 
afford great delight to the ladies, who tend 
and cultivate them with groat care. They 
keep them in large basins, made for the pur¬ 
pose, with a smaller basin full of holes, in¬ 
verted upon the bottom to afford shelter 
from the glaring sun. 
The fish is easily transported, and came 
quite early to this country, and was bred in 
private ponds and fountains as a curiosity. 
It is thoroughly acclimatized and is as easily 
cultivated as any other kind of fi.-h. There 
is much less difficulty in transporting it alive 
than most other kinds of fish. Wif h frequent 
change of water it can be carried all over the 
country, and it could be sent a day’s journey 
by rail without any attendant in comparative 
safety. 
They are most frequently seen in glass 
globes or vases in the parlor and require very 
little attention beyond the change of water 
every morning. They will live a long time 
without food but will not increase in size. It 
is better to feed them moderately, as they 
will live much longer, and are more lively. 
They will not breed at all in glass vases. They 
are a pond fish and seem to thrive best in 
sluggish and rather warm water. They will 
breed rapidly in any pond t hat does not diy 
up, and thus mauy small ponds may be util¬ 
ized that are not suitable for trout or black 
bass. They are often put in artificial foun¬ 
tains upon the lawn or in ponds planted with 
water lilies and other water plants for orna¬ 
ment. 
They spawn in the month of June in this 
As the spawning time approaches 
The American crow is generally distrib¬ 
uted from the Gulf of Mexico to the Colum¬ 
bia River, throughout the interior, and along 
the coast, to latitude fifty-five degrees, and 
congregates in immense numbers in the 
Southern and Western States during winter. 
Wherever they are found, they are perse¬ 
cuted and destroyed by man, with guns 
and poisons, and tins regardless of the vast 
benefits they confer in the destruction of 
myriads of grubs, aud innumerable quadru¬ 
peds inimical to poultry flocks. They are 
consequently fearful of man, and wonder¬ 
fully adroit in evading his pursuit. They 
evidently know Ins weapons of destruction, 
and hoe from him the more prompt!}' when 
these are exhibited. A sentinel upon the 
summit of a lofty tree, who has been ob¬ 
served to be regularly relieved, is faithful to 
duty, giving timely wannng ol the approach 
of dauger, and being himself the last to 
effect a retreat. Perhaps no other species of 
the feathered tribe has so taxed the ingenuity 
of man to compass its destruction. Its dep¬ 
redations upon the sprouting corn, in spring, 
suggest all kinds of snares and t raps, and of 
devices to frighten it from the fields. As it 
is known to be very cautious and suspicious, 
every manner of deception is used to take 
advantage of tins trait of its character, and 
to induce it to think i.hat its safety depends 
upon its keeping clear of the specious sham- 
traps set for it. Hence corn-fields are strung 
round with twine stretched from pole to 
pole beneath effigies of men and boys ; min¬ 
iature wind-mills are erected on poles, or 
pieces of tin or glass are suspended to dangle 
in various partis of the field. But, when the 
crows have once got a taste of the corn, they 
defy all these appliances, though the exhibi¬ 
tion upon a pole of one of their own species 
slain, is not without effect in deterring them 
from depredations. As a means of capturing 
individuals for this purpose, resort is some¬ 
times successfully had to the use of corn, 
steeped in sweetened whisky or rum, which 
they eat freely, and, when becoming intox¬ 
icated, they fall an easy prey to their ene¬ 
mies. 
The presence of this bird, however, is by 
many regarded as a proof of its usefulness, 
aud its destruction is by such persons deemed 
unwise, the service it l enders being supposed 
to be far greater than the depredations it 
commits iu gratifying its appetite for fruits, 
seeds, and vegetables of every'kind. Snakes, 
frogs and lizards, various species of worms 
and grubs, insects, aud putrid carrion when 
pressed with hunger, constitute a portion of 
its food. It is also fond of the eggs of other 
birds, and in unger will break in the skull of 
a weak or wounded bird, and delights in 
annoying its twilight enemies, the opossum, 
raccoon and. the owl, and will even follow, 
by day, a fox, wolf, panther, or any other 
carnivorous boost, seemingly to share the 
prey' of such animal, or to devour it when 
man has slain it ; and though it plunders 
the fields of their superabundance, it yet 
protects the poultry of the fann-y r nrd from 
the depredations of the thieving hawk. Af¬ 
ter a severe winter, however, it has been 
known to pluck out the eyes and destroy 
very young lambs in the spring. 
The breeding-place of the American crow, 
Mr. Audubon say's, is selected with great 
care, in the interior of dismal swamps, or on 
the sides of elevated and precipitous rocks, 
almost alway's admirably concealed from the 
eye of man ; but I have never found it so 
very cautious. On the contrary, in the 
Northern sections of the Union, they gener- , 
ally build their nests in the margin of the 
forest. They select for the purpose lofty 
trees, from which they can see a great dis¬ 
tance, and seemingly watch the operations 
of the farmers around them. Several 
latitude, 
they change their listless habit of floating 
near the surface and sink in deep water. 
When the young fish buret from the eggs 
they are black, of various shades, and do not 
gain their scarlet hues until they are about a 
year old. As they are found in a breeding 
pond they are of many different hues and 
some of them partly colored in the changing 
process. Some wonder at these different 
hue3, aud think they' must be distinct varie - 
ties of carp. They are not altogether a car¬ 
nivorous fish and do not take the hook 
readily. 
In creeks they' are best taken with a scoop- 
net or seine. This carp is of chief value as an 
ornamental fish. The flesh is rather soft and 
not of high flavor but is frequently eaten iu 
the absence of better kinds of fish. Their 
bright colors are very attractive to fish 
hawks, and this enemy will need to be guard¬ 
ed against. There is always a ready market 
for gold fish in the cities ; the price varying 
with the supply and demand. The demand 
generally exceeds the supply. To city' fam¬ 
ilies, who are cut off from trout brooks and 
fish ponds, they are exceedingly attractive, 
especially to the children. The gold fisli put 
into the fountains in the capitol grounds at 
Washington some years ago found their way 
into the Potomac, and they are now numer¬ 
ous in that stream. They are also found iu 
some parts of the Hudson, having escaped 
from private ponds that were stocked with 
them.—IE. Clift, in Poultry Bulletin. 
return. It is much ou the principle of those 
simple contrivances by which Pigeons can 
enter their lofts after a period of liberty, but 
are unable to lly out again. We shall cer- 
tainly make use of it ourselves this summer, 
and report our success in due time.” 
THE INSTINCT OF SWARMING 
D. L. Auair 
say's :—“Another undesirable 
instinct is that of swarming. In a state of 
domestication there is not only no necessity 
for it, but it is positively injurious. With 
proper management it can be prevented, and 
if prevented for a time, longer or shorter, 
and the necessity for it removed, it would 
disappear as other wild instincts do, under 
domestication. Swarming is the result of 
abnormal conditions, aud in a wild state is 
forced upon them by necessity, and in pursu¬ 
ance of the law of adaptation, by' which in¬ 
stincts are developed or repressed so as to 
accord with surrounding conditions. The 
ey'es of fishes iu eaves are never used, because 
the conditions will not permit, and conse¬ 
quently they' dry up, and the skull openings 
are closed. Instincts are governed by the 
same laws, and are repressed by non-use.” 
BEE TRAP 
How shall I get the bees out of my super ? 
This is a question that crosses tne mind of 
most bee keepers when their supers are ready 
SHAD-FISHING WITH HOOK AND LINE 
Until very recently it has been the cur¬ 
rently-received belief that shad could not be 
caught with a hook and line, and their appli¬ 
cation to shad-fishing was looked upon as im¬ 
possible. It has been proved, however, that 
they can be taken with hook and line if the 
right bait is used, and hundreds have so been 
taken at Holyoke. Concerning the discover¬ 
er of the practicability of catching shad with 
hook and hue, there is no doubt, but the 
Springfield (Mass.) Union is inclined to award 
the discovery to Thomas Chalmers, a Scotch¬ 
man. Discovering that shad taken contained 
in their maws large numbers of a peculiar 
kind of miller, he made a “fly” closely re¬ 
sembling it, and after repeated experiments 
succeeded. Keeping his secret, he took more 
than 1,100 shad during 1S71. The secret final¬ 
ly leaking out, the Holyoke people fished ex¬ 
tensively last year, and were remarkably 
successful, and anticipate fine sport this year. 
pairs 
build iu the neighborhood, and when any' 
domicil is molested, they make a common 
cause of it. aud manifest then’ sympathy' by 
a union of voices aud forces. They breed in 
almost every portion of the Union, and prob¬ 
ably westward to the Pacific. The period of 
nestling varies from February to the begin¬ 
ning of June, according to the locality. 
Their scarcity on the coast of Labrador sug¬ 
gests a doubt to Mr. Audubon of then* iden¬ 
tity with the carrion-crow of Europe. The 
nest, however, resembles that of the Euro¬ 
pean crow, being formed externally of dry 
sticks, interwoven with grasses, and thickly 
plastered with mud or clay within, and lined 
with fibrous roots and feathers. Three eggs, 
or sometimes four, are laid by the female, 
SPRING TREATMENT OF BEES. 
Mrs. Tcpper says that in the spring she 
increases her bees as fast as possible by' 
feeding. Early bees make all the honey. 
By the last of May she divides every hive, 
by taking out a strong colony. Gives each a 
queen, afterwards prevents s warming. Gives 
the queen as much empty' comb as she will 
fill with eggs. The queen lays hi the spring 
in proportion to the room she has and the 
amount of food and temperature. Makes the 
hives as close as possible in spring to retain 
heat. 
to be taken off. There are several plans rec¬ 
ommended and tried, but each is attended 
with a great deal of trouble, and loss of time 
