much enjoy the punishment and nagging they get so soon after they
have been mamma's own darlings. But it is all for their good, as
the old lady said when she skinned the eels, and old Silverspot is
an excellent teacher. Sometimes he seems to make a speech to
them. What he says I cannot guess, but judging by the way they
receive it, it must be extremely witty. Each morning there is a
company drill, for the young ones naturally drop into two or three
squads according to their age and strength. The rest of the day they
forage with their parents.

When at length September comes we find a great change. The
rabble of silly little crows have begun to learn sense. The delicate
blue iris of their eyes, the sign of a fool-crow, has given place to
the dark brown eye of the old stager. They know their drill now
and have learned sentry duty. They have been taught guns and
traps and taken a special course in wireworms and green-corn.
They know that a fat old farmer's wife is much less dangerous,
though so much larger, than her fifteen-year-old son, and they can
tell the boy from his sister. They know that an umbrella is not a
gun, and they can count up to six, which is fair for young crows,
though Silverspot can go up nearly to thirty. They know the smell
of gunpowder and the south side of a hemlock-tree, and begin to
plume themselves upon being crows of the world. They always
fold their wings three times after alighting, to be sure that it is
neatly done. They know how to worry a fox into giving up half his
dinner, and also that when the kingbird or the purple martin assails
them they must dash into a bush, for it is as impossible to fight the
little pests as it is for the fat apple-woman to catch the small boys
who have raided her basket. All these things do the young crows
know; but they have taken no lessons in egg-hunting yet, for it is