Volume 1

American ornithology; or the natural history of the birds of the United States / By Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucian Bonaparte. Edited by Robert Jameson.

  • Alexander Wilson
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: American ornithology; or the natural history of the birds of the United States / By Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucian Bonaparte. Edited by Robert Jameson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    been observed to fall down in the fields, and on the roads, exhausted with cold and hunger. In one of these winters, and during a long continued deep snow, more than six hundred crows were shot on the carcass of a dead horse, which was placed at a proper distance from the stable, from a hole of which the discharges were made. The premiums awarded for these, with the price paid for the quills, produced nearly as much as the original value of the horse, besides, as the man himself assured me, saving feathers sufficient for filling a bed. The crow is easily raised and domesticated; and it is only when thus rendered unsuspicious of, and placed on terms of familiarity with, man, that the true traits of his genius andmative disposition fully develop them- selves. In this state he soon learns to distinguish all the members of the family; flies towards the gate, screaming, at the approach of a stranger; learns to open the door by alighting on the latch; attends regularly at the stated hours of dinner and breakfast, which he appears punctually to recollect; is extremely noisy and loquacious ; imitates the sound of various words pretty distinctly ; is a great thief and hoarder of curio- sities, hiding in holes, corners, and crevices, every loose article he can carry off, particularly small pieces of metal, corn, bread, and food of all kinds; is fond of the society of his master, and will know him even after a long absence, of which the following is a remarkable instance, and may be relied on as a fact: A very worthy gentleman, now [1811] living in the Gennesee country, but who, at the time alluded to, resided on the Dela- ware, a few miles below Easton, had raised a crow, with whose tricks and society he used frequently to ‘amuse himself. This crow lived long in the family ; but at length disappeared, having, as was then supposed, been shot by some vagrant gunner, or destroyed b accident. About eleven months after this, as the gentle- man, one morning, in company with several others, was standing on the river shore, a number of crows happen- ing to pass by, one of them left the flock, and flying directly towards the company, alighted on the gentle-