42 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Injury to standing grain, especially corn in the ear, is often attributed 

 to the Crow and the Blackbird. The author has examined on several 

 occasions hundreds of acres of corn fields which have been injured while 

 in the milk by grackles and Red-winged blackbirds, at least the upper 

 third of nearly every ear in the field having been mutilated by the birds. 

 Such depredations, however, are mostly confined to low-lying districts 

 near extensive marshes inhabited by the blackbirds, and are by no means 

 general, in fact, scarcely noticed in most sections of the country. Corn 

 in the shock is extensively injured by crows and pheasants when it is left 

 standing in the field through the late fall and early winter. The loca- 

 tion of crow roosts in western New York is determined to a considerable 

 extent by the crops of corn left unhusked in the field. It is also true 

 that the blackbirds, English sparrows and pheasants, where numerous, 

 do considerable damage to the wheat, barley and oat fields by attacking 

 the grain while standing, and also in the shock or grain stack; but none of 

 our native sparrows have been accused of doing damage to grain in New 

 York. While ducks, geese and bobwhites take a little corn, wheat and 

 buckwheat, near the marshes or coverts where they reside, almost all their 

 foraging is done on waste grain which is scattered over the field and never 

 would be brought into the granary, so they can not be called injurious 

 from the grain which they devour. 



Injury to cultivated fruit. Of all the frugivorous species mentioned 

 in a preceding paragraph, only the Robin, Cedarbird, Red-headed wood- 

 pecker, Catbird and English sparrow have caused extensive trouble from 

 their destruction of the smaller cultivated fruits in this State. In some 

 sections the Crow and the Grackle have done some damage and occasionally 

 slight complaints have been issued against thrashers, flickers, tanagers 

 and orioles for attacks upon outlying cherry trees. The Crow and Red- 

 headed woodpecker also attack summer apples to an annoying extent 

 in some orchards, and in the vineyards of central and western New York, 

 the Robin and the Pheasant, as well as the Crow, have been annoying 

 in a few districts. Of all the damage which has been done to the fruit 



