Crows Boy 
the crows were after insects, rather than corn. One 
morning I happened along just after he had shot two 
crows in the cornfield, and his remark to me was 
something like this: “There are two of your innocent, 
insect-eating birds, but they’ll never pull any more 
corn for me.” 
“Well,” I replied, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t believe 
that they pulled very much of your corn.” 
The farmer quite warmly remarked: “TI sat by the 
fence and watched them, and what I see with my 
own eyes is enough for me.”’ 
I obtained from him permission to dissect the 
crows, and in the stomach of one I found the unmis- 
takable remains of a field mouse, several cutworms, 
remains of various insects, a little vegetable food, 
and one kernel of corn. The other stomach con- 
tained several cutworms, remains of other insects, 
traces of vegetable matter, but no corn. The farmer 
had agreed to believe his eyes, but now he was almost 
willing to doubt them. 
On the ground throughout the field were plenty of 
withered stalks of corn an inch and a half to three 
inches in length; this the farmer believed to be the 
work of crows, but it was the work of cutworms, as I 
clearly proved to him upon visiting the field; and 
in ten days the whole field of corn was nearly ruined 
