The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1903-04-18
NONSENSE ABOUT ANIMALS.

NONSENSE ABOUT ANIMALS.
For forty years I have seen crow:
in winter in different parts of the
country, passing to and fro between
their rookeries and their feeding
grounds, and have never seen any
thing like leadership among them.
They leave their roosting places al
daybreak and disperse north and
south or east and west to their feed
ing grounds, going in loose, strag-
Cling bands and silently, except in
early spring, and they return at night
in the same way, flying low if it is
stormy and windy, and high if it is
calm, rising up or sheering off if they
see gunner or other suspicious OBJ
ject, but making no sound, uttering
no signal notes. They all have eyes
equally sharp and do not need to be
warned. They are all on the alert.
When feeding they do post a SEN
try, and he caws when danger ap-
proaches and takes to wing. They
do not dart into a bush when pursued
by king bird or a purple martin ];
they are not afraid of hawk; they
cannot count six, though such tradi-
ton exist (Silver spot count thirty y ::
they do not cav when you stand
under them in winter to turn their
course, they do not drill their young
they do not flock together in June
they cannot worry fox into giving
up half his dinner; they do not, as
far as we know, have perpetual en-
tries they have no calls that, so far
as we know, answer to our words,
Mount" !" Bunch" "Scatter,"
Descend" Form Line" "For-
age"-on these and other points my
observations differ radically from Mr..
Thompson-Seton's.
Mr.. Long doubtless got the hint of
his ridiculous book from Mr.. Thomp-
son Seton's story of the crow, where
in he speaks of a certain old pine
woods as the crows fortress and COL
lege: "Here they find security in
numbers and in lofty yet sheltering
perches, and here they begin their
schooling and are taught all the Sc
crets of success in crow life, and in
crow life the least failure does not
death.
Now the idea was false one be-
fore Mr.. Long stole it, and he has
pushed it to such length that it be-
comes simply ridiculous. There is
not a shadow of truth in it. 1t is
simply one of Mr.. Thompson-Seton's
strokes of fancy. The crows do not
train their young. They have no
fortress, or schools, or colleges, or
examining boards, or diplomas, or
medals of honor, or hospitals, or
churches, or telephones, or postal de-
liveries, or anything of the sort. In
deed, the poorest backwoods hamlet
has more of the appurtenance of CIV
ilization than the best-organized crow
or other wild animal community in
the land
There is a school of woods, just as
much as there is a church of the
woods, or parliament of the woods,
or a society of united charities of the
woods, and no more there is moth
ing in the dealings of animals with
their young that in the remotest way
suggests human instruction and dis
cipline. The young of all the wild
creatures do instinctively what their
parents do and did. They do not
have to be taught; they are taught
from the jump.
The bird sings at the proper age,
and builds its nest, and takes its ap-
propriate food without any hint at
all from its parents. The young
ducks take to the water when hatch
ed by hen as readily as when hatch
ed by duck, and dive and stalk in
sects, and wash themselves just as
their mothers did. Young chickens
and young turkeys understand the
various calls and signals of their
mother the first time they hear or see
them. At her alarm note they squat,
at her call to food they come, on the
first day as on the tenth. The habits
of cleanliness of the nestlings are es-
tablished from the first hour of their
lives. When bird comes to build
its first nest to rear its first brood, it
knows how to proceed, as well as il
does years later, or as its parents did
before it. The fox is afraid of trap
before he has had any experience with
it, and the hare thumps upon the
ground at the sight of anything
strange and unusual whether its mates
be within hearing or not. 1t is true
that the crows and the jays might
be called the spies and informers o.
the woods, and that other creature:
seem to understand the meaning oi
their cries, but who shall presume tc
say that they have been instructed II
this vocation? Mr.. Long would have
us believe that the crows teach theil
young to fly. He might as well say
that the rooster teaches its young t
crow, or that the cock grouse teache
tie young males to drum. No birt
teaches its young to fly. They Il,
instinctively when their wings ar
strong enough. John Burroughs, a
the atlantic Monthly.
| JAcK-"My grandfather had a fin
collection of silver, which he bequeath
ed to my father on condition that !
should always remain in the family.