Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/490

476 as, for instance, the many different notes of the brooding-birds, are only heard at certain seasons. In this connection, it may be added that the intelligence of crows is fully one half greater than that of any other bird in our fauna. Instances of the exercise of much cunning and forethought on their part are almost innumerable.

Let us see, however, if among our singing-birds there is not to be found evidence of an ability to communicate ideas, presumably by the aid of vocal sounds. Here is an occurrence that took place in my presence in the spring of 1872. A pair of cat-birds were noticed carrying materials for a nest to a patch of blackberry-briers hard by. To test their ingenuity, I took a long, narrow strip of muslin, too long for one bird to carry conveniently, and placed it on the ground in a position to be seen by the birds when searching for suitable materials for their nests. In a few moments one of the cat-birds spied the strip and endeavored to carry it off, but its length and weight, in whichever way the bird took hold of it, and he tried many, impeded its flight. After worrying over it for some time the bird flew off, not, as I supposed, to seek other materials, but, as it proved, to obtain assistance in transporting the strip of muslin in question. In a few moments it returned with its mate, and then, standing near the strip, they held what I consider to have been a consultation. The chirping, twittering, murmuring, and occasional ejaculations were all unmistakable. In a few moments this chattering, if you will, ceased, and the work commenced. Each took hold of the strip of muslin at about the same distance from the ends, and, starting exactly together, they flew toward their unfinished nest, bearing the prize successfully away.

I followed them as quickly as possible, and, reaching the brier-patch, never before or since heard such an interminable wrangling and jabbering. Had I not seen the birds, I doubt if I should have recognized them from their voices. The poor birds simply could not agree how to use so long a piece of material to the best advantage. If it had been shorter, they might have made it serviceable; but as it was, being neither willing to discard it nor able to agree as to its proper use, they finally abandoned it altogether, and so too they did the unfinished nest and the neighborhood.

In one corner of a low-lying tract near my house, called the "mucky meadow," there remains a clump of large maples, pin-oaks, and birches which have somehow been spared by the former owners of the land. They are mine now and are safe. At the first white frost, the hollow maple, that throughout the summer has securely housed a family of short-eared owls, now gives us evidence of the fact, by dropping the leafy screen that hid them well from view. While the young were yet babies the old tree shielded them well—now they are able to shift for themselves, and the tree offers them shelter, but nothing more. With the departure of the sunlight the owls are all astir, and it is funny enough to see them. Of a single owl but little can be said; but before the