File:Bird-lore (1914) (14755110002).jpg

Identifier: birdlore16nati (find matches)
Title: Bird-lore
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals
Subjects: Birds -- Periodicals Birds -- Conservation Periodicals
Publisher: New York, National Association of Audubon Societies
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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by hundreds or thousands in some favorite grove.Some years ago there was such a roost near the town of Greens-Great Roosts boro, North Carolina. It was resorted to for several years insuccession, and was a source of no end of wonder to the peopleof the surrounding country. The roost occupied several acres in a grove ofsecond-growth, yellow-pine trees. By four oclock in the afternoon the birdswould begin to arrive, and from then until dark thousands would come fromall directions. Singly, by twos and threes, in companies of ten, twenty, or ahundred, they would appear, flying high over the forest trees, driving straightacross the country, pointing their line of flight as direct as only a crow can flyto their nightly rendezvous. Early in the morning they were astir, and if theday was bright it would not be long until all had departed, winging their wayover the fields and woodlands to widely scattered feeding-grounds. Often I watched them come and go, and one night walked beneath the (466)
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CROW Order—Passe resGenus—CoRvus Family—Corvid,^ Species —Brachyrhynchos National Association of Audubon Societies The Crow 467 sleeping hosts and shouted aloud to them; but they did not heed my presence,nor was I ever able to arrive at any reasonable explanation for their nightlyassemblies. Surely they did not gather thus, as some writers have suggested,purely because of an impulse for sociability and for love of their kind, for Isaw them quarreling among themselves on many occasions. Especially do I recall one evening when, as I watched them coming toroost, I became conscious of an unusual commotion among a flock of eight.One evidently was in great disfavor with the others, for, with , . , . .1 . 1 • • Killing a angry and excited cawmgs, they were strikmg at hmi m a most ^ . unfriendly manner. The strength of the persecuted bird wasall but spent when I first sighted them, and when, perhaps two minutes later,the fleeing one sustained a particularly vicious onslaught, it b

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