Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1898 — A Crow’s Treasures. [ARTICLE]

A Crow’s Treasures.

One day while watching I saw a crow crossing the Don valley with something white in his beak. He flew to the mouth of the Rosedale brook, then took flight to the beaver elm. There he dropped the whited object, and, looking about, gave me a chance to recognize my old friend Silverspot. After a minute he picked up the white thing—a shell—and walked over past the spring, and here, among the docks and the skunk-cabbages, he unearthed a pile of shells and other white, shiny things. He spread them out in the sun, turned them over, lifted them one by one in his beak, dropped them, nestled on them as though they were eggs, toyed with them and gloated over them like a miser. This was his hobby, his weakness. He could not have explained why he enjoyed them, any more than a boy can explain why lie collects post-

age stamps, or a girl why she prefers pearls to rubles; but his pleasure in them was very real, and after half an hour he covered them all, including the new one, with earth and leaves, and flew off. I went at once to the spot and examined the hoard; there was about a hatful in all, chiefly white pebbles, clam shells, and same bits of tin r but there was also the handle of a china cup, which must have been the gem of the collection. Tliat was the last time I saw them. Silverspot knew that I had found his treasures, and he removed them at once; where, I never knew.—Ernest Seton Tompson, in Scribner’s.