Huntsville gazette., 1888-06-23


certainly would have been shocking if
translated into English. The noise
made by the combined throats of the
fifty excited crows may be imagined by
any one who has ever been within
listening distance of q flock of crows
unusually disturbed. The way they
were handling themselves and jawing
made it plain that they had much more
serious business on hand than their or
dinary drudgery in corn-fields and their
day-long trssles with non-combative
scarecrows. | stopped my horse and
proceeded to observe as we'll as | could
what in the name of Sam Hill the
rumpus was all about. | wasn't long
in discovering that grounding was
the unfortunate creature of all this dis
turbance. The grounding has as sem
sitive a palate to the grain that tum-
bles down in the stubble as the COW
has, and he had innocently ventured
from his hole to feed little The
crows had discovered him, and, look
ing upon him as an intruder, had at
once set about ejecting him. The
woodchuck's bulTow was on piece of
elevated ground at one edge of the
fl eld, and he was seeking to show the
crows that he meant no otfense by try
ing his best to get out of the stubble
and back to his own threshold. The
crows did not mean to be propitiated
by this effort of the ground-hog, and
they assailed him on every side with
sharp beaks and vicious claws. The
progress of the ground-hog homewrd
was consequently painful and slow.
Now and then his equanimity would
be upset by some particular savage on
slaught of the crows, and then he
would turn and show fight; but that
only increased the dimensions of the
picnic the crows were having. As
good luck had it for the woodchuck,
he wasn't far from his hole. and by
and by he reached it, and he went in
his front door rs if he had never been
so glad to reach his humble abode be-
fore.
1.-The sudden disappearance of the
ground-hog caused great CONSERVATION
among the crows, and it was some time
before they could make up their minds
whether he had been whisked out Of
sight in the air or the bottom had
dropped out somewhere and let him in.
One big old crow flew around among
the others and went through what
seemed to be some sort of inspection as
if he rather suspected that some one of
them had swallowed the grounding at
a gulp. But by and by they seemed to
agree that the missing poachcr had
gone into the hole at the edge of the
field, and then they flew at it and
picked into it and swore like politi-
clans. They quieted down aftera time
and held a solemn confab at the mouth
of the ground-hog's den. The result
of this consultation was that two wise
looking old crows flew to rail fence
twenty feet OF so away and the rest re-
turned and resumed their dinner. |
was hot and so thirsty that my tongue
| felt like Il whole potato in my mouth,
but made up my mind that would
see that circus out, and so ] sat still in
my wagon.
1.-The two crows on the fence watched
| that ground-hog's hole without once
taking their eyes of it. | knew then
that they had been placed there as
sentinels to give the alarm if the i'm
| pudent intruder on their field of labor
should appear again. Twenty minutes
went by and no sound was heard from
the sentinels. Suddenly one of them
stepped up close to his companion and
mumbled something way down in his
throat, as if he was whispering. What
ever he said seemed to strike the other
crow as being the proper thing, and
he mumbled something back. Then
the two bobbed their heads and con-
fabbed further for minute or so and
then yelled to the flock out in the field.
The whole lot came flying to the fence,
and a great pow-wow was held. The
noisy interchange of views seemed to
end in a perfect agreement among the
crows, for they all flew down in body
and surrounded the ground-hog's hole.
| thought at first that they intended
to go to work and dig the poor wood
chuck out and make meal of him,
but that idea was soon Knocked out of
my head. What do you suppose they
did? They all fell to with a will and
began to fill that ground-hog's hole up
with stones and dirt. They worked
and they worked and they worked, and
in the course of half an hour they had
plugged the hole up as far as they
could get the dirt and stuff into it,
and packed it down so hard that moth
ing less than pickaxe could have
budged it l was beginning to feel
sorry for that unfortunate woodchuck,
all fastened up in the hole that way,
and probably pretty badly torn up by
the attacks of the crows at that, and
was resolving in my mind to go and
borrow a pick somewhere and come
back and dig him out that night after
! III L