Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1898 — CRIPPLED BIRDS. [ARTICLE]

CRIPPLED BIRDS.

Varied and Ingenious Ways in Which They Secure Food. Birds deprived of the use of limbs do not always “go to the wall.” A writer In a contemporary has seen a finch with a wounded wing sustaining life by robbing spiders’ webs strung across the brambles and low bushes of the files entangled therein. _ This enterprising songster did not show a lean body, either, and at the end of three weeks was able to fly away to Its old haunts. A lame crow lived for the greater part of a summer by eating the bait from a cluster of rat-traps, the dexterity it employed In avoiding the spring and teeth revealing It to be cunning and observant. Hunger compelled it to attack an imprisoned rodent on one occasion, the struggles of the latter eventually dragging the bird Into the snare, the two found by a stableman later in the afternoon. But for barefaced Impudence a pled wagtail comes first. This bird had suffered an injury to its pinions, and ran about a kitchen garden for some time before It was discovered. Even then it evaded capture, and its nimble legs served It in good stead, not even the cat having a chance in the race. The master of the house had a pet owl which was fed regularly on milk-sops, the bowl being carried into an outhouse where the blinking bird fed at leisure. One day the wagtail was observed to run into the barn, and, with gaping mouth and wings fiercely flapping, attack the owl so persistently that it hobbled off, leaving the milk and bread to the mercy of the ravenous little asasilant. This happened so frequently that the owl was in danger of pining, and its meals were served in a more secure quarter. A wood-pigeon with broken wing robbed the barn-door fowls of their grain, and grew so bold that it actually scared away the hens by strutting and puffing out its breast, pecking at them when they ventured too near him, and eoolng discordantly loud to further frighten them.