The Somali Arabs bear a deadly hatred toward the Crow. The origin of their detestation is the superstition that during the flight of Mohammed from his enemies, he hid himself in a cave, where he was perceived by the Crow, at that time a bird of light plumage, who, when he saw the pursuers approaching the spot, perched above Mohammed's hiding place, and screamed, "Ghar! Ghar!" (cave! cave!) so as to indicate the place of concealment. His enemies, however, did not understand the bird, and passed on, and Mohammed, when he came out of the cave, clothed the Crow in perpetual black, and commanded him to cry "Ghar" as long as Crows should live.
And he lives to a good old age. Instances are not rare where he has attained to half a century, without great loss of activity or failure of sight.
At Red Bank, a few miles northeast of Cincinnati, on the Little Miami River, in the bottoms, large flocks of Crows congregate the year around. A few miles away, high upon Walnut Hills, is a Crow roost, and in the late afternoons the Crows, singly, in pairs, and in flocks, are seen on the wing, flying heavily, with full crops, on the way to the roost, from which they descend in the early morning, crying "Caw! Caw!" to the fields of the newly planted, growing, or matured corn, or corn stacks, as the season may provide.
"Everywhere the blue sky belongs to them and is their appointed rest, and their native country, and their own natural home which they enter unannounced as lords that are certainly expected, and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival."
The return of the birds to their real home in the North, where they build their nests and rear their young, is regarded by all genuine lovers of earth's messengers of gladness and gayety as one of the most interesting and poetical of annual occurrences. The naturalist, who notes the very day of each arrival, in order that he may verify former observation or add to his material gathered for a new work, does not necessarily anticipate with greater pleasure this event than do many whose lives are brightened by the coming of the friends of their youth, who alone of early companions do not change. First of all--and ever the same delightful warbler--the Bluebird, who, in 1895, did not appear at all in many localities, though here in considerable numbers last year, betrays himself. "Did he come down out of the heaven on that bright March morning when he told us so softly and plaintively that, if we pleased, spring had come?" Sometimes he is here a little earlier, and must keep his courage up until the cold snap is over and the snow is gone. Not long after the Bluebird, comes the Robin, sometimes in March, but in most of the northern states April is the month of his arrival. With his first utterance the spell of winter is broken, and the remembrance of it afar off. Then appears the Woodpecker in great variety, the Flicker usually arriving first. He is always somebody's old favorite, "announcing his arrival by a long, loud call, repeated from the dry branch of some tree, or a stake in the fence--a thoroughly melodious April sound."