I am going to tell you some pitiful things. I have seen young, unhatched robins spued out of a dying crow’s mouth, and the little things were still alive. Whether the eggs were broken in her throat before I shot her or not, I do not know, but they were broken when thrown up. Yes, they will take blackbirds’ eggs just as quick as they will the robins’, and other, weaker birds’ if they have the opportunity; but the robin does seem to be their choice, possibly because he does not conceal his nest better. Yet I was hunting the crows because they pulled our corn! In all my life I never knew a crow to bring corn to her young. Yes, I have shaken as high as seven little, unhatched birds out of a gasping crow’s mouth, and any one of these creatures, if left to mature, would do as much good as a crow. If you want to trap a crow use hens’ eggs for bait, but bear in mind he is cute, and you must conceal the trap very carefully.
The bronze grackle is nothing only a small crow; his habits are exactly the same. He will drop on a tree and look around; seizing an opportunity he will come down and go through a bush where there is likely to be a song-sparrow’s nest just like a ferret will go through a stone-pile after a rabbit. I have known him to take the young birds after they were hatched. But so many men who know the habits of these birds will say they think they do as much good as they do harm! Why they make this statement I don’t understand. And if you throw this book across the room and never pick it up, I cannot help it, for I am telling you the truth: These crows and grackles are the worst nest-robbers in America. They do ten times more harm than good. Remember I am not writing just to please the reader, but to give you facts gathered from personal experience and observation, and my beliefs founded thereon; and I am sure that fifty per cent. of the eggs and young of our song, insectivorous and game birds in Ontario are devoured by these cold-blooded, nest-robbing cannibals, the crow being the worst of all. He will take young mourning doves out of the nest when they are as large as sparrows; the quail, and kildeer, and dozens of other such beautiful mothers are perfectly helpless and can no more keep him off than a human mother’s naked hands could keep a vicious lion from tearing her baby into fragments.
By the way, I am now perfecting a trap whereby I can catch crows by the hundreds during the winter months. These crows will be handed over to gun clubs for trap-shooting purposes. And although he is a black murderer we must treat him fair, and give him a chance for his life; therefore, my request will be to shoot them from five unknown traps at twenty-five to thirty yards rise. The shooter will not be charged for the crows he kills, but will be fined for every one he allows to escape; in addition to the above fine he will be liable to any other punishment a good, cheerful bunch of trap-shooters see fit to impose upon him, such as rail-riding him around the club-house for allowing one of these black murderers to get away. The shooters will be fined according to their shooting ability. These fines will be used for buying up old, faithful horses which will be humanely destroyed and used for bait to decoy more of these old, black Pharaohs to their just doom. Thus what is now the crow nuisance will be turned into a sport.
The hawks and owls are worst on the adult birds, the screech-owl is not so innocent as he looks, but there is none can compare with the great horned owl, and I just wish you knew the annoyance he has caused me by taking my choicest pets. Yes, it seems he delights in taking the nearest and dearest. But now let me give my horn a toot: Never did a horned owl take a bird from me but what paid the penalty.
About the only argument you hear in favor of the hawks and owls is “mice.” But when a bunch of successful farmers meet at my tile factory, never in my life have I heard them complain about mice, and I know mice seldom bother clean, shrewd farmers. But I have heard them complain about worms until I could almost feel myself crawling. The cut-worms were cutting their corn, or the wire-worms were destroying their oats, the army worm was working north, and so forth. Personally I have never had any experience with worms, but field mice I have often carried in my pockets, and if it wasn’t for some youth practising the same sport, how I would like to tell you some of the fun I have had with them when I was a lad. For the death of each mouse by hawks and owls possibly we lose several birds which would destroy thousands and thousands of worms each year. I know there is a type of farmer who is much more easily annoyed by mice than others. You will usually find him down town, sitting on a soap box, smoking in the time, now and then getting up and moving his seat around and possibly turning it end for end to keep it from getting tired; his stock at home are of the rainbow variety, with long whiskers, and when they see him coming they don’t know whether to come or go, and the one or two razor-backed, South Carolina, thistle-digger hogs don’t care whether or not they get out of the steaming manure heap, to be disappointed; the remnant of scrubby apple trees in the field, which some one else planted, have been fleece-grown with cut grass ever since he got possession of the farm, that, of course, was handed down to him.
If your orchard is stubble or clover sod, go through it in the early fall. By being careful you can determine whether there are any fieldmice there by their little runways that criss-cross on the ground. If so, take about one-half bushel of grain and thirty or forty bundles of corn fodder; throw a handful or two of grain on the ground and two bundles of fodder side by side over it, making a nice mouse cover. Refuse hay, or clover chaff will do, but I prefer the corn fodder. Fifteen or twenty of these little harbors are sufficient in an ordinary orchard. In ten days or two weeks all the mice in the orchard will be under these covers. Now take the six- or eight-pronged pitch-fork, scratch around these little harbors to destroy their road of retreat, then throw the cover off quickly; the light striking their eyes so suddenly, they are apparently blinded for a second, giving you just time enough to give them a side whack with your fork; if you study what you are doing, you will kill seventy-five per cent. of them the first time ’round, always placing the cover back ready for next time. If you don’t care for this sport, just introduce a bunch of school boys to your plan and you will soon find your annoyance turned into sport and education for the neighbor boys.
In case you haven’t the above-mentioned material to make these mouse covers, old junk lumber thrown on the ground will answer the same purpose. But if you leave these mice and depend on the hawks and owls to destroy them, some of your trees will be girdled, as the mice seem to have a sort of human appetite, and appear to like the apple tree bark equally as well as the human race likes the apple tree juice.
The mouse question always reminds me of a story told on the other fellow. It is said that he saw an advertisement: “How to kill potato bugs! Full directions sent on receipt of one dollar.” This of course was a cheap opportunity, and he enclosed a dollar at once. In reply he received a small box containing a little block and mallet; the directions were: “Put him on No. 1, and hit him with No. 2.”
CHAPTER IX.
Weasels, and How to Destroy Them.
Now, as a field-mouse destroyer we have come to the king of them all. I have found as high as twenty-seven adult field mice stored in a weasel’s winter home. Yet of all the four-legged enemies our birds have, I know of none to compare with the weasel. But if I were to ask the experienced hunters of America if they know the weasel all would be disgusted, because the weasel is so common throughout this country. I was once in that class myself; I thought I knew all there was to be known about them. I had shot them out of the tops of trees, and dug them out of the ground; I had called them into the tile shed and even into the engine room; I had sat here in the woods and called them so they would come up and smell of the ends of my fingers; I had seen dozens of the little rascals in Northern Ontario when I had been hunting moose, and had sat down and called them across the creek to me. Yes, I thought I was well acquainted with them.