Last winter I had a laughable time with them. Shortly after the first snow I noticed a pair of camp-robbers—they seem to go in pairs both summer and winter—around our meat-house. If you have never seen them you cannot know what comical birds they are, so solemn and innocent appearing, yet when it comes to stealing—well, they are the greatest and boldest thieves you can find. If they are about and you chance to have anything eatable around and turn your back for a moment you are pretty sure to find it gone when you look again. I remember while camping one fall, of seeing one of them dart down from a tree and take a slice of meat right out of the frying-pan on the fire! But it was too hot to hold long, and Mr. Camp-robber was obliged to relinquish his dainty dinner before reaching his perch again. Arriving there he sat for a long while, looking down at me with a wry face.
But I am digressing, and must get back to my story of the camp-robbers and the meat-house.
A few days after I first saw them, I went in the house to cut some meat for dinner; while there one of the robbers alighted on a bench placed at the side of the door, and stood peeping in. I cut a small piece of meat and tossed it on the step and in a second he had pounced on it and was away. Everyday, from that time on, just at noon, the pair of them would be watching for me, and I made it a rule to put some small pieces of meat or bread on the steps at that hour of the day. As soon as I retreated a little way they would secure them and fly off.
After they had been with me about a month, a bluejay happened along one day, and seeing them at their meal, invited himself to partake of part of it. The camp-robbers seemed somewhat angry at this, but did not venture to remonstrate. The next day there were two bluejays and by the end of a week I had two camp-robbers and seven bluejays looking to me for their daily dinners.
I fed the whole company all winter and when spring came the camp-robbers would almost take food from my hands; in fact they seemed to look to me for protection, when eating, from the bluejays, who were rather overbearing and wanted more than their share.
Whether they will visit me this winter I know not, but I do know that I should be glad to see them again.
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| FROM COL. F. F. SPREYNE. A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO. | WILLOW PTARMIGAN. ½ Life-size. | COPYRIGHT 1900, BY NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO. |
