| Show eap exp EXPLOITS OP OF A CROW VERY CLEVER INDEED BUT HE MET AN UNTIMELY DEATH AM anecdotes by a ii 31 man who MHO gs sw S sour strange things even eren though he nod had a gun the crow disliked certain kind f of animal alris A l RIS he was a great hunter when this region was nearly all woods sixty years yeara ago ago said an old resident of bell meadow 1 I picked a young crow out of the mud in tamarack swamp where he be had tumbled out of he nest before he vaa old enough to fly I 1 named him abe and tamed him and he developed into the brightest bird I 1 eversal ever saw like all tame crows abe was mischievous chi evolia and inquisitive there was a knothole inthe in the floor of our cistern nd lid the crow find out what was mider ader it although he tried very hard several times a day abe flew down ito to the creek hunted up a pebble and c carried it in his bill to the floor of the cistern where he dropped it through tho the knothole the instant he be let the pebble I 1 drop be would buthis pat his ear closets close to the I 1 hole and listen he could hear the pebble strike the water and the noise out of his bia sight excited his curiosity s so 0 muck that he dropped a half bushel of pebbles nibbled into the cistern before he gave up abe accompanied me on all my haut hunting trips in the fall and winter and he raw me mil five or six wolves half a dozen wildcats and several deer the woods wooda were full of deer and there were so GO many any wolves that we coulden couldn keep any sheep cheep abe took a great liking to deer and rabbits but he hated wolves and wildcats seeming to understand that they were destructive and dangerous one afternoon the summer that he was a year old abe flow flew into our little clearing and cawed and flattered about as if ho ha wanted me to leave my work 1 I knew the crow had seep seen something that displeased him and so I 1 picked up two rifles and told him togo to go ahead just to see what he would do ao he went equalling through the air toward bell meadow brook and when he alighted on a tree ile he kept yelling and looking down in the tavine I 1 lo looked olred too little expecting to see what I 1 did A pair of wolves were tearing at a doe they had pounced on and pulled down 3 I 1 killed hilled them both before they got three leaps from the doe and when abe saw that they coul coulden couldn move he cawed and as though he was glad the nest mt winter there were three teet feet and a halt half of snow enow on the bleiel level and we had to wear waar snowshoes to get around whilo while I 1 was splitting wood near the house bousa one cold morning the th crow came sailing bailing aud and squal equalling ling to the settlement settle meLt from the direction of lake senry he was excited about something and he perched on an the log and went to flapping his WINS wings and ud dancing up tip and down 1 I understood hira wt well 11 enough eu on h to know that lie he had seen Bome that no like the locks of 0 up in the woods toward the lake so 0 o I 1 and my brother and cousin boosin put on oil our oar snowshoes ghoul dered five loaded rifles and star started tact into tho the woods abe aba leading the tha way and yelling he ha led us ur to the lake where we saw a sight eight that I 1 shall never forget in ia a apace where tho the wind had blown the snow enow from the tha ice a flocos of seven Beven deu deer bad baa been cornered by a pack of five wolves got get out ou on account of the tha deep sno saby wt and the wolves had killed three of the them when we ia ass there them ahila we wore ware blazing away at the brutes the tha crow flew overhead and rh shouted his hia approval we killed the whole pack paa and aha abe felt so BO good that he be rolled over on the crust several times one day in the spring the crow saw a fisher catch a rabbit and carry cany it to a hole in a basswood sawood ba tree thirty feet from the ground my brother and I 1 were chopping near byj by and abe squalled squal led around till he ha attracted our attention when he be flew up to the hole hola where the fisher was waa concealed we Vs chopped the basswood sawood ba down and the fisher skipped out and ran up a hemlock tree to where the leaves were so thick we sea aea it abe flow up alighted above the fisher and began to squall and squinting through the folia foliage 0 o below him I 1 could seo see enough of the fisher to fire at I 1 banged away and down came mr fisher with a bullet in his head alyo fairly laughed when the fisher tumbled aone one morning I 1 found six fib pellets on the floor of the hen shanty A mink had killed them and that night I 1 sit two steel traps and put one of the pullets between in the tha morning a mink had its fore forefeet feet in one of tho the traps trapa and one of its hind bind feet in the other abe tagged me ne in and when he be saw the mink struggling to get out he be ran up in front of it and began to yell in its face I 1 let the crow torment it and aad while ray my back was wag turned the mink caught abe by the tha neck and bit him so hard that he died in a few minutes cor new york tribune Tribuna |
