ow have Seaauad the feathers of the oe and they have 
~ to be shaken loose. | | 
One day last April the Northiveet Cae of the neigh- 
borhood seemed to be unusually excited, circling about a 
tall cedar tree, sometimes dashing into its thick branches, 
making so much uproar that a girl decided she would find 
out the cause of the noise. As she drew near she could hear 
an angry snarl mingled with the cawing of the crows, and 
_ hunting around, she saw a bundle of brown fur in a crotch 
of the branches from which two bright eyes kept watch of 
her and the noisy birds. She was sure that the bundle was 
a raccoon that had gone to sleep in the tree and been caught — 
out of his regular hiding-place, and she ran to the house to 
call her brother, but, by the time she returned, the raccoon 
had succeeded in getting himself away from all his enemies. 
At the very top of this tree sat two crows, chuckling 
over something that seemed most amusing to them. As 
the children watched, one bird threw himself out into the air, 
where, appearing to lose control of his flight, he dropped, 
legs dangling, head hanging, tail uppermost for fifty feet, 
before he eee his wings and did a dance in the air, as if | 
he wanted to show his great skill and shining feathers to 
his audience. Over and over he went through this queer 
courting performance until his companion flew down to the 
beach where he followed her. e 
| Crows are not popular with other on although gulls 
and they are often seen taking a meal together from the big 
table that the tide has left spread on the sand. The “‘Chack, 
hack, chack, chack,” of a flock of Brewer Blackbirds in a 
scattered grove of the oldest firs in a little valley once gave 
a chance to see a battle royal. Three big crows were. 
marooned in three separate trees, and around each, two to 
five blackbirds were trying to keep their particular crow 
unhappy. 
If a crow were foolish. enough to sit on a dead tree 
branch, where the blackbirds could surround him, they 
75 
