596 
FOREST AND STREAM 
October, 1918 
THE BIOGRAPHY OF BILLY, A TAME CROW 
THE REMARKABLE LIFE HISTORY OF A WILD BIRD WHICH HAS BEEN INTI¬ 
MATELY ASSOCIATED WITH A MICHIGAN FAMILY FOR A SCORE OF YEARS 
Photographed at Hicksville, N. 
Rockwell. 
'J ’ HE Natural History Department 
•* has been for nearly half a 
century a clearing-house for infor¬ 
mation of interest to all. Our read¬ 
ers are invited to send any questions 
that come under the head of this de¬ 
partment to Robert Cushman Mur¬ 
phy, in care of Forest and Stream. 
Mr. Murphy, zvho is Curator of the 
Department of Natural Science in 
the Brooklyn Museum, will answer 
through these columns. [Editors.] 
T HE rearing of young crows taken 
from the nest has been successfully 
accomplished many times, and the re¬ 
markable capabilities developed by some of 
these pets is well known. It is said that 
tame crows sometimes learn to talk, espe¬ 
cially, according to legend, if their "tongues 
are split.” The editor is very skeptical 
about the efficacy of the latter practice, but 
he has known of at least three crows 
which were raised to maturity in semi¬ 
captivity, and which came to fulfil in their 
respective households all the offices of 
watch-dog, alarm clock, and court jester. 
A gentleman who has a home on the shore 
of Buzzard’s Bay once kept a crow which 
had made itself a well-known character 
throughout a large neighborhood and a 
terror to all the dogs in that part of Mas¬ 
sachusetts. 
The following extraordinary account by 
Miss Pearl A. Schutz, of Houghton, Michi¬ 
gan, is fully substantiated by the testi¬ 
mony of other observers who have known 
the crow, “Billy,” for a long time. For a 
whole generation, apparently, Billy has 
been the guest and friend of the Schutz 
family, and, although absolutely uncon¬ 
fined, has chosen to return year after year, 
often arriving on the anniversary of the 
good saint of Erin’s Isle. Now, moreover, 
the crow bids fair to pass along his legacy 
of human favor to a son and heir! Such 
an account not only constitutes a natural 
history story of exceptional interest, but 
also is an important contribution to our 
knowledge of bird migration, homing in¬ 
stincts, and the whole science of animal 
psychology. 
Editor, Natural History Department, 
Forest and Stream : 
It affords me great pleasure to tell you 
all about my crow. 
My father was very fond of pets as 
also were we children. When strolling 
in the woods one day father sighted a 
crow’s nest in a tree. My brother and I 
begged him to climb the tree and see .if 
there were crows in the nest. He did so, 
and to please us brought us one of the 
little crows which was about a week old 
then, if I remember correctly. We took 
him home and fed him and made him a 
nest out of a cracker box and some hay. 
He grew quite rapidly and kept us busy 
feeding him, for a crow eats only a very 
little at a time but wants to be fed often. 
The bird grew to be quite a pet and we 
prized him highly. We named him “Billy.” 
Billy followed us about the house and 
when I went to school he went with me, 
sometimes walking behind me part of the 
way, and sometimes flying on my head and 
insisting on my carrying him. He also 
enjoyed riding on buggy tops down the 
road. Billy loved to tease and sometimes 
would pull the hat pins out of my hat and 
fly away with them. Crows are very tricky 
birds, and Billy is happy when he can steal 
something from the house and fly away 
with it, and hide it from the family. At 
one time after he had left the house with 
a silver knife in his mouth and we had 
followed after, watching to see where he 
would hide it, we found several articles 
which we had missed for some time on 
the cornice of the house. Among them 
were my mother’s glasses, two bars of 
soap, one of father’s cuff-buttons, a ten- 
cent piece, some broken china, and several 
other articles which I do not now recall. 
When my father put a ladder to the house 
and attempted to take the articles away, 
Billy jumped on his head and tried to sink 
his beak into it. This is Billy’s chief mode 
of punishment. 
Billy enjoys his bath. When he wants 
a bath he pulls mother by the apron to the 
wash basin and spreads out his wings and 
talks to her. He bathes by the hour at 
times. 
This pet is very fond of strawberries. 
We had a patch of cultivated strawberries 
in our back-garden which the crow claimed 
as his own. He did not approve of any¬ 
body but himself picking these berries, and 
was more prejudiced against my father 
than any of the rest of us. If father at¬ 
tempted to pick and eat berries out of this 
patch, Billy would chase him out, and if 
father refused to go he always got the 
worst of it. 
Billy was also fond of butter, and one 
day when I came home from shopping I 
laid two pounds of butter on the kitchen 
table. I had no sooner turned my back 
