Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1905-06-09
cAPERs OF THE CROW.
Some Remarkable Stories Of the
Birds Intelligence.

Some Remarkable Stories Of the
| Birds Intelligence.
BY this title to an article In a re-
cent issue by Charles Hallock, I am
reminded Of many Of the doings of
tame crows that have known.
wonder how many know that by
getting a young crow, before 1t is able
to fly, and by patience and persever-
ance for a few days or perhaps weeks
It can be taught to talk, and after
the first few words that 1t learns to
pronounce 1t learns much faster than
any child that ever heard Of. Among
wild crows I never have seen one
that talked, so I cannot say whether
talking would frighten crows or not
but I presume 1t would. I wish that
pair of talking crows could be mated,
and raise brood to see whether they
would teach their young to use human
speech.
| I have seen things that astonished
me as much as that would. I have
seen a pet duck raise brood Of chick
ems, and before they were two weeks
old she had them well versed in duck
Language, and had taught them how to
swim. The reason that l have for be-
lieving that they understood duck Ian
guage is this: That If hawk or
crow flew near she would give one
harsh quack and every one Of the
chicks would scud into the weeds, and
after the danger was past she would
give five or six quacks and out they
would come, without the least appear
ance of fear.
But the greatest performance was
the way she impressed 1t on their
minds that it was time that they learn
ed to swim. One foggy, cold morning,
early in the spring, when they were
about a week old. heard her using
some of the worst duck language that
I ever heard and the chicks were yell
ing all kinds of bloody murder ran
out to learn what was the trouble,
and there she was at the edge of the
water. grabbing the chicks In her
mouth and throwing them In the
river. and they were scrambling out
so fast that she never had more than
half of the brood in the water at one
time. I knew that the water and the
weather were so cold that she would
have them so chilled in a short time
that they would all die, so l shut her
up in the coop and kept her there for
several days.
When / again let her out she took
the chickens to the water and gave
them another lesson In swimming, and
she repeated this several times day,
and In three or four days she had them
educated so that when she would go
into the water and call them to come
along they did so without any hesita-
ton. She apparently had sense enough
not to keep them in the water long at
a time and that call reasoning. for
It certainly was not instinct.
One of the talking crows that have
known was owned by man by the
name Of Lew Labady, who kept a no.
tel In Petoskey, Mich, and his.wife one
day In a fit Of anger for some misde-
meanor that the crow had cut up.
grapped him and took him out In the
yard and chopped his head off, the
crow shouting "Oh, don't!" "Oh.
DON'T" as she carried him to the
block.
l suppose I should not write this
A.
will publish 1t, but I was angry at her
for killing the crow, for l had taught
him to talk several years before, and
the offense was small. He had under
taken to fly off with a small bottle Of
something, ink probably, and had
dropped 1t, and the bottle broke and
made a stain on the carpet. Her hus-
band would have been willing to re-
carpet the room rather than to lose
the crow. and he was as angry about
1t as / was.
don't know that all crows could
be taught to talk, for It seems reason
able to me that some Of them might
be much more intelligent than others.
nave KNOWN ldlhlll6
they all spoke in a higher key than
people commonly do. but not more so
than a few persons that have known;
but their talk is very much palmer
than that Of any parrot, and a crow
does not use a lot of meaningless
words. and he knows what he Is talk
ing about
| One Of these crows was owned by
a man that lived in Cena, upper
Michigan. / don't know as he or the
crow either Is living now or not, for
1t has been a long time since l was
there, but that crow had a knowledge
and command of wit and repartee that
would beat the best criminal lawyer
that ever tried to tangle a witness In
his evidence / can't recall the mans
name that owned him. The other
crow was shot by mistake for wild
crow, and the mans name that owned
him was Tom Cutler, and he lived In
Traverse City. Mich. Some Of his
sons are living there now.-Forest
and Stream.
IN THE WEST END.-A small boy
was reciting in a geography class. The
teacher, who was trying to teach him
the points of the compass. exclaimed: