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crows come into the city to roost, as it is warmer than their summer estates.
They are really Chinese crows for they quarrel a great deal and like to live huddled together. I have seen hundreds sleeping in one tree and they make little villages at nesting time. Several times have I seen as many as eight nests in one tree and it's rarely you see just one. They are great thieves too and carry away a great many eggs. Any one keeping chickens has to watch closely for the eggs for the crow is cute enough to hear the hen cackle and immediately flies down and off with the egg. I have seen a crow sit for a long time watching one of our hens in the nest just waiting his chance, and another time he got it but as he flew it fell and then he sat a long time on the wall debating how it happened. Perhaps he thought of the rhyme "All the king's horses and all the king's men could never put Humpty-dumpty together again."
I still have bats; fear of them is a thing of the past. They live somewhere in the peaks of the roof. I had to have the roof mended not long ago for every rain saw me placing basins and pails around. And the roof mender nearly landed through twice, much to my consternation. I had quite a roof garden of blooming fungi, but he swept it all away. I don't know what it is, whether it's fungus or cactus, but it grows on roofs and walls and has a very pretty white flower, very waxy looking.
My house is separated from the two-story house by a little garden which I told you before. In the picture I haven't put anything in the garden, but in front of the right-hand window is a grape arbor and vines, in front of the arbor is an old pomegranate tree. The width of the garden is all that belongs to us that way, but our compound is long from the front to the back. If you would be interested in a plan of the compound I can send you a rough one on request.
We have many unfriendly neighbors in the back lane and Mr. Malcolm is trying to do something for them, so every day just about the time they are eating their food we three stand at the