50 USEFUL BIRDS. 



stomach. I am not aware that this has ever been done, but 

 have no doubt that the majority of the farmers of Massachu- 

 setts would not object to the destruction of a considerable 

 number of 3'oung Crows for this purpose, or an}^ other. 



The Crow which was accidentally killed had fed freely 

 upon grasshoppers for twenty minutes, and died ten minutes 

 after the close of the feeding period. An examination of 

 the alimentary canal showed the stomach to be quite full, 

 but less than fifty per cent, of its contents, consisting mainly 

 of the hard parts of wings, thoraces, and legs, was in a con- 

 dition to l)e recognized. The strongly chitinized pronota 

 and hind femora of the grasshoppers offered the most resist- 

 ance to the digestive processes. The other fifty per cent, 

 of the stomach contents had been so finely divided, in the 

 very brief time that it had been in that receptacle, that one 

 would hardly have cared to express a positive opinion as 

 to its identity. This condition of stomach contents is not 

 unusual. In examining the contents of birds' stomachs we 

 often find more than fifty per cent, of the food so finely 

 comminuted and mixed as to be practically unrecognizable. 

 The presence of insects in a bird's stomach is sometimes made 

 known by a mere mandible or some other recognizable por- 

 tion, which has resisted for a time the grinding of this remark- 

 able digestive organ. It is significant, however, that, in the 

 thirty minutes intervening between the beginning of a feeding 

 l)eriod and death, the stomach had thoroughh" puherized 

 half the food eaten. 



This experiment was carried further with the second Crow. 

 On September 14 the only food materials given the bird were 

 six crickets and eleven grassho})pers. These it ate within 

 four minutes, and thirty minutes later it was killed. 



Only about twenty-five per cent, of the stomach contents 

 was recognizable, but this is not all. The alimentary canal 

 was thirty-six inches in length, and in the intestine at a 

 distance of from twelve to fifteen inches from the stomach, 

 and again at twenty-five to twenty-eight inches from that 

 organ, were found a few small pieces of the fore wings of the 

 grasshoppers. As the bird had not been fed since 4 o'clock 

 in the afternoon of the previous day, these remains probably 



