CORVID.E — THE CROWS. 245 



mit a very near approach before it will fly, and even then will not move 

 to a distance. In all of the United States east of the Mississippi it is very 

 abundant. In Texas, between San Antonio and the Mexican frontier, it is 

 not common ; but Mr. Dresser found it very common in the northeast part 

 of the State during the whole year. 



Probably no one of our birds, so whoUy worthless for food, has been more 

 hunted and destroyed than this species. In certain parts of the country it 

 is held in great aversion by the farmers, and in some States bounty-laws 

 have been enacted by legislatures to promote its destruction. Had not 

 these birds been possessed of an extraordinary intelligence, they must long 

 since have been exterminated or driven from a large part of the country. 

 In some sections their numbers have been of late much diminished by the 

 use of strychnine. During the month of May the Crow is very destructive 

 in the cornfield, pulling up the grains as soon as they begin to vegetate, and 

 compelling the farmer to replant perhaps several times. Wilson remarks that 

 in the State of Delaware these birds collect in immense flocks and commit 

 great devastation upon crops of standing corn. They also occasionally com- 

 mit depredations in the barnyard, robbing hens'-nests of their eggs, and 

 even destroying young chickens. They also destroy the eggs and young of 

 other birds. The mischief they thus do is doubtless very great, and the 

 ground for the prevalent prejudice against them is quite apparent. Yet it is 

 equally demonstrable that this bird is surpassed, and probably is equalled, 

 by no other in the vast amount of tlie benefits conferred upon agricultural- 

 ists. The evil it perpetrates is very limited, and is confined to but a short 

 period, but during all the time it is resident the Crow is constantly engaged 

 in the destruction of injurious insects and rodent quadrupeds. In the early 

 spring it feeds almost wholly upon the most destructive grubs, an"! in 

 extensive districts of Massachusetts, where these birds have been largely 

 destroyed, the ravages of the May-ljugs and the grasshoppers in pasture- 

 lands have been a natural consequence of so short-siglited a policy. 



The persecutions to which the Crow is subjected liave developed in them 

 a M^ariness and a distrust that is foreign to their nature. They can only live 

 by keeping on a constant lookout for dangers, and by learning to distinguish 

 the weapons that threaten tlieir destruction. As soon as anything is seen 

 that causes alarm, the signal is at once given, and the warning passed from 

 one to another. 



In New Jersey and in Pennsylvania, during the wiiiter months, the Crows 

 assemble in immense flocks, and their movements a])pear to be regulated by 

 the guidance of a few chosen leaders. I received from the lips of the late 

 John Cassin, an ornithologist hardly less remarkable for his outdoor obser- 

 vations than for his researches in the closet, only a few days before his 

 death, a very surprising account of the movements of a large army of Crows, 

 witnessed by himself, in the spring of 1868. 



On a Sunday morning in April, when Philadelphia was enveloped in a 



