This I knew, and I rushed to the rescue of my young robins, but I was much too late. The feast was well along toward its conclusion and the nests were nearly empty. The parent birds, reënforced by others of the neighborhood, were doing their best. They plunged and darted at the marauders, plucked and clawed at them, but not one whit could they stir them, nor did they leave at my approach, and it took vigorous and well-directed volleys of stones from a near-by heap to drive them away. Then they went heavily, as if gorged to such repletion that they could hardly fly.
I went on home sick at heart, and vowing shot-gun vengeance on all crows thereafter; and it was not until I had carved the chicken for dinner that I realized that there might be extenuating circumstances. For, after all, the crows had as much right to robin for their dinner as I had to chicken for mine.
Crows certainly are responsible for a large amount of infant mortality among young birds in the nesting season, however, and to my mind it is the greatest crime of which these black robbers stand guilty. It is for this reason that the crow is so well hated by smaller birds, and I don’t doubt it is this consciousness of guilt that makes him hang his head and flee away before the attack of the least of them. Blackbird and kingbird alike will send him flapping in shamed haste for the big wood, and it makes no difference whether or not he has attempted to burglarize their homes or slaughter their children.
Just as a known pickpocket is railroaded out of town by the police, whether guilty of present misdemeanor or not, so the kingbird sends flying any crow that crosses his path during the nesting season. You will hear the strident, half-hissing scream of rage on the part of the kingbird, see him launch himself from the air above and strike the back of the flapping crow with a thump that perhaps makes the feathers fly. The crow never attempts to strike back. He merely hangs his head and scuttles the faster for the tall timber where is release from this torment. I’ve never known the kingbird or any other indignant small bird to do the crow material harm; but he certainly sends him flying.
One August, traversing a lonely swamp, I heard a great commotion among crows over in its duskiest, farthest corner. Slipping quietly up, I found a number of them swooping about another, which sat on a low limb within a few feet of the ground. This crow was making beseeching cries, like those of a greedy youngster which still hoped to be fed, and I thought this was the case at first, for, though by August all young crows have long been full grown, the old birds continue to keep oversight of them. I had no sooner come within sight than the keen birds saw me, and away they all went except the supposed youngster, who still kept his perch and his silence, nor did he attempt to move as I approached and finally picked him off his perch.