ad Crow

ometime ago Baron Von Lodge was the head of a small country near Switzerland known as Lilliland.

The Baron’s fiancée, Lady Angela of Alpine Castle, asked his adviser about a crow that kept hanging around her garden and would scare her cat, Mr. Whiskers, away. Every time Lady Angela’s cat would want to go out into the garden, the crow would chase him back into the house. There were no other crows around, only this one big one.

At first Lady Angela had her gardener chase the bird away with a broom. But Lady Angela quickly decided that she needed the gardener to do other things. Then Lady Angela asked her maids to do the same thing, but they refused after a few days.

Finally Lady Angela asked the Baron if he had any ideas. The Baron asked Professor Hamblin if he could find a solution.

Professor Hamblin thought about it for a few days and came to an interesting conclusion. The one solution that others had tried was to capture the bird in a box and release it several miles away, but it would always return to Lady Angela’s garden.

One conclusion was that the bird thought he possessed the garden and did not want Mr. Whiskers walking around in his garden. The crow would dive down toward the cat’s head and frighten the cat. Mr. Whiskers quickly retreated for fear of being pecked on the head.

The Professor said that he had a simple idea. There were some castle guard uniforms stored away that had long since been replaced. The Professor suggested that dummies would be fitted with the old uniforms. Three uniforms would be used. The dummies would be placed so as to resemble live guards. They were positioned in the center of the garden so as not to be overlooked by the bird.

The next time Mr. Whiskers came out, the bird began to dive directly at the cat but quickly changed his direction when he saw the uniformed guards. It had worked and Mr. Whiskers could now enjoy sunning himself in the garden at his will.

The Professor was pleased that his idea worked. He said that it was nothing more than the old scarecrow trick, but this time the scarecrow was not the figure of a farm field worker but a castle guard.

Since no guns are allowed in Lilliland, the idea of shooting the crow was out of the question and a safe solution was just as easily found.