My knowledge of Jim’s epicurean tastes came about in a strange way. I was preparing our simple repast one noon, when I felt the rush of wings over my head. Before I had time to look up, something dropped with a splash into the pan of bacon I was frying and then, from a distant branch, Jim laughed gleefully.

He had dropped a young Rooster, which he had just killed, into my hot grease. He had made some attempt to take off the feathers but it was not successful, and I removed it, to Jim’s great disgust.

He talked so much and so long that I finally lost track of it, but I had the main idea. He had killed the Rooster not only for the fried Chicken, but to satisfy a personal grudge. I judged from Jim’s remarks, that this young Rooster had crowed over him long enough and had come, by a swift vengeance, to an ignominious end. We had the Chicken the next day, fried, with bacon and corn fritters, and it was not half bad—rather less than a quarter, I should say, which was all I could expect, since I had no ice and was obliged to keep it over night in a warm climate.

One other observer has found that Crows play games with each other, but he has not specified the games. I have fully tabulated these and have found striking resemblances to the games of children. Personally, with my own eyes, I have seen a flock of Crows playing “Follow the Leader,” “Puss in the Corner,” “London Bridge,” “Tag,” “Prisoner’s Base,” and “Drop the Handkerchief.” The handkerchief was a bit of white wool unwillingly contributed by some Sheep, a ball of hair from a Hare or Rabbit, or a compact cluster of feathers from someone who had been called down.

Early in the Summer, Jim moulted. It was pathetic to see him going about without his clothing, and I made him a red flannel jacket, such as the kind ladies in _Cranford_ made for the Cow who fell into the lime. The jacket and a good hair tonic, rubbed in thoroughly about every other day, put him well in advance of the season, and long before the other Crows had their new clothes, Jim was strutting about in the full glory of his, as proud as a Peacock and fully as impertinent. He always cherished the red flannel jacket. It hung from his perch for a while, where I was not allowed to touch it, and then he flew off into the woods with it, to pack it away, I suppose, with his other treasures.

It grieves me to the heart to write of the end of Jim, that brave, gay, mischievous Bird, who shared my bed and board for a Summer, and then met the universal fate of the wild. The end of a wild animal is always a tragedy 

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