246 BULLETIN 191, UNITiED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



myriads of invertebrates that abound there. I have also seen them feed- 

 ing on dead fish left behind by the tide, and at one time seven crows 

 were taking their turns at the carcass of a dead seal. It is not unusual 

 to see them thrusting their beaks into the mud to secure what seemed 

 to be a Nereis, a marine annelid worm, much after the fashion that 

 robins retrieve earthworms from our lawns. F. H. Kennard (MS.) on 

 July 15, 1923, saw a young crow foraging on his lawn for earthworms. 

 For over an hour he and others observed the crow pulling up the worms. 

 After they were pulled out the crow would stand on the worm and 

 cleanse it with its bill before swallowing it. Brewster (1883) relates an 

 experience of crows eating 20 good-sized trout that had been hidden in 

 a spring. The farmers along the Maine coast complain that crows as 

 well as gulls are a nuisance in removing fish placed on their fields as 

 fertilizer. Ball (1938) reports similar damage in the Gaspe region, 

 and other complaints have come from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. 



When hard pressed crows may resort to all manner of means to ob- 

 tain food. For example, Isel (1912) has seen crows enter the business 

 district of Wichita, Kans., to feed from garbage pails back of restau- 

 rants; Crook (1936) has observed crows feeding on car-killed animals, 

 including dogs, cats, chickens, opossums, pigs, and even skunks ; Guthrie 

 (1932) states that crows prize a dead snake as much as a living one; 

 Anderson (1907) reports that in Iowa crows frequent the slaughter- 

 houses to feed upon the waste of slaughtered animals; Scott (1884) 

 observed crows feeding on a carcass of a dog while the temperature 

 registered 14" below zero. These cases serve to emphasize the role 

 played by crows as scavengers. They also attest the omnivorous feeding 

 of crows and their extreme resourcefulness in securing a livelihood under 

 adverse conditions. Such adaptability insures the success of any species 

 in spite of persecution. 



According to Kalmbach (1920) vegetable matter forms nearly 72 

 percent of the adult crow's yearly food, and over half of it consists of 

 corn. Of 1,340 adult crows collected in every month of the year, 824 

 (over 61 percent) had fed on corn. During April and May, when the 

 com is sprouting, corn constitutes about a third of the food, and at the 

 harvest in October it supplies over half of the crow's diet. The damage 

 by the crow is chiefly to sprouting com, corn "in the milk," or when 

 the ripened grain has been stacked in shocks. Of the three, the second 

 seems to be the most serious. It is not so much the corn the crow 

 actually eats at this time but the subsequent injury resulting from water 

 entering the ears from which the husks have been partially torn that 

 makes the loss so important. 



In 1938 the United States Biological Survey made a special investi- 



