brown paper behind or under the pan for a lighter background, and at first the birds hopped nervously when it moved, but they soon got used to it, and ate on it and on the pan, as it happened. And how they did stuff ! They were so absorbed that, although I sat within four feet of the pan, they sometimes came too near for me to focus. They paid so little heed to my presence I have no doubt they would have eaten from my hand had I not been engaged in keeping them at a proper distance. When the raw meat was gone Mrs. Langille gave me a supply of cooked fat, and it was astonishing to see how much of the greasy stuff they could swallow. I caught one just as he was about to fly off with a billful of it. The fat seemed to make them thirsty; they had to go to the hydrant to wash it down with cold water.
CLARK’S CROW
Photographed from nature by Walter K. Fisher.
Meat Hawk, the name the mountaineers have for them; is certainly appropriate. They are on the lookout for meat wherever it is to be found, be it kitchen door or forest. Their appetite for game is truly remarkable. Mr. Langille told me he might go through the woods all day without seeing a single Jay, but if he killed a deer and the smell of blood filled the air, in a few moments the birds would be about, calling and whistling; and, emboldened by the prospect of a feast, they would fly down and perch upon the carcass within reach of his hand, sometimes before the deer was entirely skinned.
On Mount Shasta, although the Nutcrackers came about camp, they showed no desire for camp food, and on Hood Mr. Langille informed me that the Crows tamed this year were the first they had ever succeeded in coaxing about. After I left the mountain they became still more familiar, and, I am told, would gather in the trees at daybreak and call until the family went out to feed them.
