I sleep in the open air eight months of the twelve, and the crows awake me each morning before it is fairly light. For a half-hour or more they keep up a conversation in the crow language. They seem to be debating and laying out a programme for the day.
They must have a crow almanac, for they know all about the tides. If the tide is out in the morning they seek the clam-flats without a report from a scout. At this early hour they make the flight without posting sentinels. If it is high water they go down to the seashore to see what the tide has brought in.
It is generally supposed that crows utter but one note, or cry, a loud caw. The fact is the crow language is not confined to one note, for "ker" is heard as frequently as "caw."
The cries of the crow can be modulated to express many of the feelings common to the human voice.
In the old times, when I killed crows right and left, I often threw dead birds into my cabin dooryard. If a crow passed over, his sharp eyes always discovered his dead comrades, and he would immediately circle above the bodies, repeating several times a cry, "ker-r-r-r," which most vividly expressed horror and indignation.
IX.
LIFE IN THE WOODS
The first years of my hermit life were passed rambling the woods of Ward Eight, Rockport, Essex, and Manchester. I bought a double-barrel shotgun, not on account of the game to be found in the woods, but because I was told of the wonderful duck shooting in Ipswich Bay.
For three years there was a great supply of acorns, and gray squirrels swarmed in the woods of the Cape. The next four years were years of famine to all animal life that depended on acorns. The gray squirrels died off by hundreds, and the second year the most of the survivors migrated. Two years ago there was a great crop of sweet acorns, and some of the gray squirrels returned. As last year was a nut year for bitter acorns, the squirrels would have become plentiful if it had not been for the gunners.