The few hills left made quite a show two years later. They had produced a crop each year without being discovered by hunters. But when the weeds and shrubs made a rabbit-cover, "wild potatoes" were discovered on that side-hill, and I was soon informed of the fact that the potato was growing in a wild state "away back in the woods."
RUFFED GROUSE.
I believe that crows destroy fully one-half the quail and grouse on Cape Ann. A woods fire south of my cabin burned the nest of a ruffed grouse late in the season. The grouse made a new nest north of my cabin, and one day I found four eggs in it. The next morning I heard a strange cry in the direction of the nest, and started to investigate. I took to the path at the rear of my cabin, and when I had reached the top of the hill I saw the grouse running toward me. She held one wing close to her side, but with the other she was striking savagely at two crows that hazed her as they flew above and around her. Just as I came in sight of the trio, the grouse dropped an egg from under the closed wing, and one of the crows seized it and flew so near me that I could see the egg in his bill. The thing that impressed me most was the silence of the crows. Not a sound did they utter. The scamps knew that I was near by, and would be warned of crow mischief if I heard their cries. The cry made by the grouse was new to me. It was a wild cry in every sense of the word. The grouse, when she fled with her eggs, took the path to the cabin, and I think she did it for protection.
Last spring I saw something that added to my knowledge of crow intelligence.
Fuller Brook runs past my cabin, and after losing itself in a swamp, takes up its course again between high granite hills, until it falls into the sea at Fresh Water Cove. In the valley along the brook tall pine and hemlock trees make an ideal nesting-site for crows and hawks. Last spring I was much interested in a red-shouldered hawk's-nest which was in this valley. There were two crow's nests some twenty rods farther down the valley. One of my visits found the male hawk at home, and when he discovered me he flew in circles above the trees, uttering the loud scream that can be heard for a mile or more. Soon two crows came sneaking through the tree-tops to find out what was disturbing the hawk. The hawk flew to a tall pine, but continued his cries after he had alighted. The crows flew to the same pine, and, taking a position near the hawk, began to talk to him in a low tone. It was evident that they were telling him that his loud screams would bring all the hunters of Cape Ann to the spot. The hawk continued to scream, and one crow, in a loud tone, called out, "Caw-caw-caw-caw-caw." Immediately five other crows appeared, and all attacked the hawk, striking at him with their wings until he ceased to scream.
The crafty crows did not care about the hawk's nest, but they did not intend to have the hawk publish the fact. Well they knew that a search would expose the two nests down the valley.
The red-shouldered hawk seems to be too slow and clumsy to wage war on crows, and the birds nest near each other, without trouble, only as I have related.
The crows in my locality have named me in the crow language. Two caws is the way the sentinel announces my approach to his mates.