Wood-folk comedies

by William J. Long

Meanwhile there was a stir, the ghost of a motion, in the leaning stub. Over the top of it came two furry ears, then a pointed nose and a bright yellow eye. The fox was there, watching every play of the game with intense interest; and in his cocked ears, his inquisitive nose, his wrinkling eyebrows, were the same lively expressions that you see in the face of a fox when he is hunting mice, and thinks he hears one rustling about in the frozen grass.

PLAYERS IN SABLE

IN severe weather, when snow lay deep on the silent fields, a few crows would enter the yard in view of my birds’ table, sitting aloof in trees where they could view the feast, but making no attempt to join it. I did not then know that crows are nest-robbers, like the jay, or that the smallest bird at the table was ready to bristle his feathers if one of the black bandits approached too near.

For several days, while the crows grew pinched, I waited expectantly for hunger to tame them, only to learn that a crow never ventures into a flock of smaller birds, being absurdly afraid of their quickness of wing and temper. Then, because any hungry thing always appealed to me, I spread a variety of food, scraps of meat and the entrails of fish or fowl, on a special table at a distance; but the crows would not go near it, probably thinking it some new device to insnare them. They have waged a long battle with the farmer, and the battle has bred in them a suspicion that not even hunger can heal. As a last resort, I scattered food carelessly on the snow, and within the hour the hungry fellows were eating it. Their first meal was a revelation to me; no gobbling or quarreling, but a stately and courteous affair of very fine manners. Nor have I ever seen a crow do anything to belie that first impression.

Among the scraps was some field corn, dry and hard from the crib; but the canny birds knew too much to swallow the grain whole, ravenous though they were. Green or soft corn they will eat with gusto, but ripened field corn calls for proper treatment. Each crow would take a single kernel (never more than that at one time) to a flat rock on the nearest wall, and there, holding the kernel between the toes of a foot, would strike it a powerful blow with his pointed beak. I used to tremble for his toes, remembering my own experience with hammer or hatchet; but every crow proved himself a good shot. Occasionally a descending beak might glance from the outer edge of a kernel, sending it spinning out from under the crow’s foot; whereupon he hopped nimbly after it and brought it back to the block. After a trial or two he would hit it squarely in the “eye”; it would fly into bits, and he would gather up every morsel before going back for a fresh supply.

Once when a hungry crow splintered a kernel in this way, I saw a piece fly to the feet of another crow, who bent his head to eat it as the owner came running up. The two bandits bumped together; but instead of fighting over the titbit, as I expected, they drew back quickly with a sense of “Oh, excuse me!” in their nodding heads and half-spread wings. Then they went through a little comedy of manners, “After you, my dear Alphonse” or “You first, my dear Gaston,” till they settled the order of precedence in some way of their own, when the owner ate his morsel and went back to the wall to find the rest of the fragments.

Watching these crows, with their sable dress and stately manners, it was hard to imagine them off their dignity; but I soon learned that they are rare comedians, that they spend more time in play or mere fooling than any other wild creature of my acquaintance, excepting only the otters. I have repeatedly watched them play games, somewhat similar in outward appearance to games that boys used to play in country school yards, and once I witnessed what seemed to be a good crow joke. Indeed, so sociable are they, so dependent on one another for amusement, that a solitary crow is a great rarity at any season. Twice have I seen a white crow (an albino), but never a crow living by himself.

The joke, or what looked like a joke, occurred when I was a small boy. I was eating my lunch in a shady spot at the edge of a berry pasture when a young crow appeared silently in a pine tree, only a few yards away. A deformed tree it was, with a splintered top. In the distance a flock of crows were calling idly, and the youngster seemed to cock his ears to listen. Presently he set up a distressed wailing, which the flock answered on the instant. When a flurry of wings leaped into sight above the trees, the youngster dodged into the splintered pine, and remained there while a score of his fellows swept back and forth over him, and then went to search a grove of pines beyond. When they flew back across the berry pasture, and only an occasional haw came from the distance, the young crow came out and set up another wail; and again the flock went clamoring all over the place without finding where he was hidden.