When a Crow sings, it reminds you of a cornet half full of molasses. They only sing when they are courting, which is extremely fortunate. If I were a lady Crow, wooed with song, I should take vows of eternal celibacy. They may not be saddest when they sing, but other people are.
I shot one of them one day, when they were doing too much singing, and the rest of the company called an indignation meeting on the spot. Having decided that I was the criminal, they sentenced me to have my eyes pecked out and appointed six of their number as executioners. Happily, I had on my spectacles, and when they had broken and eaten the lenses, they were satisfied. That night six more Crows died in great agony from the eating of broken glass. They did not molest me further, but buried their dead comrades with great pomp and ceremony.
Very few observers have ever seen a Crow funeral, but it fell to my lot to be present at this one. It was a bright moonlight night and I crouched behind a stump in a pasture lot, partly screened by the undergrowth that had sprung up around it, and had an unobstructed view of the entire affair.
Sometime during the day, a long, transverse trench had been dug and lined with leaves. The seven corpses, feet upward, were lying on burdock leaves at a distance of about seventeen feet from the trench. A long stem was left on each burdock leaf, and to it was tied a long, stout string which shone whitely in the moonlight. I did not know what it was for, then, but later I understood.
Seven of the oldest and most prominent Crows, at a given signal, advanced to the dead. Each one took the end of a string in his beak and stepped over it in such a way that the cord passed straight under his body. I noted with a thrill of pride that Jim was in the lead.
The rest of the Crows were in tiers a little to the left. At another signal, Jim and his followers began to march, to a low mournful tune produced by the other Crows, swaying their bodies in time to it. In my note-book I hastily jotted it down. It went like this: “_Caw-Caw, Caw-Caw, Caw-Caw, Caw-Caw_,” the first syllable of each foot being heavily accented. It was not until they reached the third measure, which, I noted, had eight feet instead of four, that it dawned upon me that they were marching to the solemn and beautifully appropriate measures of Poe’s wonderful poem, _The Raven_. It was so touching that the tears blinded me, and when I could see again, the procession was well under way.