ound of animal food, or its
equivalent, daily, in order to keep from starving. Yet they not only
do not starve that I hear of, but seem to keep in as good case in
winter as in summer, though what they find to eat is not immediately
apparent. The vague traditional suggestion of "carrion," as of dead
horses and the like, does not help us much. Some scraps doubtless may
be left lying about, but any reliable stores of this kind are hardly
to be looked for in this neighborhood. A few scattered kernels of
corn, perhaps on a pinch a few berries, he may pick up; though I
suspect the crow is somewhat human in his tastes, and, besides animal
food, affects only the cereals. The frogs are deep in the mud. Now
and then a squirrel or a mouse may be had; but they are mostly dozing
in their holes. As for larger game, rabbits and the like, the crow is
hardly nimble enough for them, nor are his claws well adapted for
seizing; anything of this kind he will scarcely get, except as the
leavings of the weasel or skunk. These he will not refuse; for though
he is of a different species from the carrion crow of Europe, with
whom he was formerly confounded, yet he is of similar, though perhaps
less extreme, tastes as to his food. But when the ground is freshly
covered with snow, all supplies of this sort would seem to be cut off,
for the time at least. Yet who ever found a starved crow, or even saw
one driven by hunger from any of his accustomed caution? He is ever
the same alert, vivacious, harsh-tongued wanderer over the white
fields as over the summer meadows.

A partial solution of the mystery is to be found in the habit which
the bird has in common with most of the crow kind, of depositing any
surplus food in a place of safety for future use. A tame crow that I
saw last year was constantly employed in this way. As soon as his
hunger was satisfied, if a piece of meat was given to him, he flew off
to some remote spot, and there covered it up with twigs and leaves. I
was told that the woods were full of these caches of his. Bits of
bread and the like he was too well-fed to care much about, but he
would generally go through the form of covering them, at your very
feet, with a little rubbish, not taking the trouble to hide them.
Meanwhile his hunting went on as if he still had his living to get,
and he would watch for field-mice, or come flying in from the woods
with a squirrel swinging from his claws, either for variety's sake, or
because he h