EASTERN CROW 243 



raised its legs, after dangling them straight, directly up under and flew 

 off with the closed claws showing as two lumps barely projecting from 

 the feathers of the lower breast. 



The feet of the crow are not well adapted for grasping, and their 

 appearance would not at all suggest that they are prehensile, yet these 

 birds do at times carry fairly large objects by means of their feet. At 

 Kent Island I saw a startled crow grasp an eider duckling in its claws 

 and transport it to cover in a thick growth of spruces. Chamberlain 

 ( 1884) observed crows carrying two young of a brood of robins in their 

 claws, and Kneeland (1883) has seen crows carrying fish heads and 

 other objects too large and too heavy to be conveniently carried in the 

 bill yet too precious to be left behind when food is scarce, as it often 

 is during the winter. Chamberlain also saw a pet crow seize a partially 

 eaten ear of boiled corn in its claws and fly away with it when accosted 

 by a barking dog. Fred J. Pierce (1923), in an article entitled "A 

 Crow that Nearly Looped the Loop," presents the following interesting 

 observation: "I noticed a Crow flying overhead carrying an article in 

 his feet that looked like a mouse or something of that sort. This Crow 

 wanted to transfer the morsel to his bill, and in trying to do so bent 

 his head underneath him so far that he lost his balance and barely 

 escaped overturning in the air. This must have surprised him con- 

 siderably, but he was a determined Crow and shortly tried it again with 

 no better success. He was continuing his vain efforts when lost to view, 

 but as his unsteady flight had brought him very near the ground, he 

 doubtless alighted, where his object was accomplished with much less 

 danger to his equilibration." 



The adult crow is very wary and suspicious of man, an instinctive 

 behavior for self-preservation that has been acquired through genera- 

 tions of experience. Yet crows taken from the nest at the proper time 

 have become pets that have exhibited the greatest confidence in their com- 

 panionship with human beings. There are innumerable instances on 

 record in which crows have proved to be interesting and entertaining pets. 



Lorenz (1937) has pointed out that a young bird, when reared under 

 artificial conditions, will invariably react to its human keeper in exactly 

 the same way that it would have reacted, under natural conditions, to 

 birds of its own species. He has also stated that the period of acquiring 

 this imprinting is confined, in some species, to a very definite and often 

 astonishingly brief period, and that certain actions of the bird for the 

 remainder of its life depend on the imprinting during this crucial period. 



Cruickshank (1939) in testing out the statements of Lorenz, contrasts 

 the behavior of two crows that he kept as pets. The first was taken from 

 the nest when it was only two weeks old. It was raised in his home 



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