When the fish crows come egging in the spruces and maples about the house, and I hear the screaming of the robins, I seize my gun and rush out to protect them, but am not always successful, as the mischief is often done before I get within reach; I am not sure but that the robins think--if they think at all--that I am in league with the crows to despoil them. I was not in time to save the eggs of the wood thrush the other morning, when I heard the alarm calls of the birds, but I had the satisfaction of seeing the black marauder go limping over the hill, dropping quills from his wings at nearly every stroke. I am sure he will not come back. The fish crow is one of the most active enemies of our small birds. Of course, he only obeys his instincts in hunting out and devouring their eggs and young, but I fancy I obey something higher than instinct when I protest with powder and shot. The birds do not mind the approach of the domestic animals, such as the cow, the horse, the sheep, the pig, and they are only a little suspicious of the dog, but the appearance of the cat fills them with sudden alarm. I think that birds that have never before seen a cat join in the hue and cry. What alarms one alarms all within hearing. The orioles are probably the most immune from the depredations of crows and jays and owls of all our birds, and yet they will join in the cry of "Thief, thief!" when a crow appears. (The alarm cry of birds will even arrest the attention of four-footed beasts, and often bring the sportsman's stalking to naught.) I fancy that Phœbe selects our sheds and bridges and porticoes for her nesting-sites because they are so much more numerous than the overhanging rocks where her forbears built. For the same reason certain of the swallows and the swifts select our barns and chimneys.