Day by day the excitement in the crow world grew, and new families appeared in the pasture as fast as old ones got out. The rails of the fence were always occupied by young ones--though never more than five or six at a time--crying and shrieking and calling for "Ma-a!" and old ones all the time flying about half distracted, cawing and trying, I suppose, to enforce some order and discipline among the unruly rogues. Order, however, was quite a secondary consideration; the pressing duty of the hour was feeding. A crow parent on a foraging expedition is a most unwelcome visitor to the farmer with young chickens, or the bird-lover interested in the fate of nestlings. Yet when I saw the persecuted creature in the character of provider for four hungry and ever clamorous mouths, to whose wants she is as alive as we are to the wants of our babies, I took a new view of crow depredations, and could not see why her children should not have a chicken or a bird for breakfast, as well as ours. Poor hunted crow, against whom every man's hand is raised! She feels, with reason, that every human being is a deadly enemy thirsting for her life, that every cylinder pointed upward is loaded with death, that every string is a cruel snare to entangle and maim her,--yet whose offspring, dear as ours to us, clamor for food. How should she know that it is wrong to eat chickens; or that robin babies were made to live and grow up, and crow babies to die of starvation? The farmer ignores the millions of insects she destroys, and shoots her for the one chicken she takes, though she has been amply proved to be one of his most valuable servants. The kingbird and the oriole worry her life out of her because her babies like eggs--as who does not! In fact, there are, emphatically, two sides to the crow question, and I take the side of the crow. XXIV. A MIDSUMMER WOOING. The "sweet June days" had passed, and bird nesting was nearly at an end. Woods and fields were bubbling over with young bird notes, and the pretty cradles on tree and shrub were empty and deserted. A few motherly souls, it is true, were still occupied with their second broods, but, in general, feathered families were complete, and the parents were busy training their little folk for life. One bird, however, the charming, sweet-voiced goldfinch, "All black and gold, a flame of fire," still held aloof, as is his custom. He does not follow the fashion of his fellows; he resists the allurements of the nesting month; he waits. Whether it be for a late-coming insect necessary to the welfare of his nestlings, or for the thistle silk which alone makes fit cushion for his delicate spouse and her "wee babies," opinions differ.