EASTERN CROW 241 



gation of the crow damage to grain, sorghums, and Indian corn growing 

 on 210 farms comprising 39,797 acres in Grady County, Okla. The 

 results reveal that Oklahoma has a winter crow population of between 

 three and four million. The damage to grain sorghums was appraised 

 at 3.8 percent and to Indian corn 1.7 percent. The loss of these crops 

 in Grady County alone for the year was estimated to be $18,370. 



On the basis of this investigation the Biological Survey concluded 

 that in southwestern Oklahoma there may be need of measures of con- 

 trol. This situation is now being met by the systematic bombing of the 

 roosts. The case of the crow in Oklahoma is qualified by the statement 

 that in some of the wheat-raising sections of Oklahoma the wintering 

 crows are a benefit. 



It was concluded that the crow problem, though serious to sorghums 

 and corn in some counties, is not of sufficient magnitude in the State as 

 a whole to demand combined State and Federal action for its solution. 

 Kalmbach (1920) writes that in the Northwest States, where corn is 

 not raised extensively, wheat replaces corn in the crow's diet. The 

 damage is especially severe at the time wheat is sown or is sprouting. 

 Oats and buckwheat are also occasionally eaten, but the larger part of 

 these grains represents a waste product. 



"Apples and almonds are less frequently injured ; while the aggregate 

 losses to beans, peas, figs, oranges, grapes and cherries are not important. 

 Fruits of the various sumachs, poison-ivy and poison-oak, bayberry, 

 dogwood, sour gum, wild cherries, grapes, Virginia creeper and poke- 

 berry" are also common ingredients of the food. "The mere consump- 

 tion of wild fruit by the crow involves nothing of economic importance," 

 but the "digestive processes destroy practically none of the embryos 

 of the seeds, and crows act as important distributors of certain plants, 

 some of which, as poison-ivy and poison-oak, are particularly noxious." 



The indigestible parts of the crow's food, such as bones, teeth, fur, and 

 hard seeds, are regurgitated in the form of pellets as is customary with 

 such birds as hawks and owls. An examination of these pellets gathered 

 at crow roosts reveal interesting elements of the food eaten by any 

 such crow population. Townsend (1918) collected several hundred 

 pellets from a crow roost located in Essex County, Mass. These pellets 

 amounted in bulk to 662 cubic centimeters of material after they were 

 broken up into their composite parts. The examination of this material 

 by E. R. Kalmbach, of the Biological Survey, revealed 13 kinds of 

 insects and 7 other invertebrates including Melampus, Nereis, Mytilus, 

 and Littorina. Among the vertebrates there were fish, bones and scales 

 of a snake, shells of hen's eggs, four meadow mice, a star-nosed mole, two 

 short-tailed shrews, and large fragments of bone. There were seeds and 



