198 LIVING CREATURES. 



49. THE CROW. 



THE common American crow is black, like the three 

 crows of the old story. It is a foot and a half long. 

 The raven is about two feet long, and is simply a larger 

 crow. Crows make their presence known by their 

 "cawing," which is not a very pleasant noise; it can 

 not be called music or song. 



The crow has a fine eye, and a rather long and 

 strong beak. The food it prefers consists of insects, 

 worms, grubs, mice, moles, and shell-fish rather soft 

 food, you observe. The bill of the bird, though stout, 

 is not hard, nor is his stomach adapted to grinding 

 and digesting hard food. When a bird has a soft bill 

 it also has a soft stomach. 



If a crow is driven by hunger to eat hard corn, he 

 seldom swallows the kernel whole, but with the fine 

 curved point of his bill picks out the germ or soft 

 part of the kernel. In corn-planting time, before the 

 mice, beetles, and bird's eggs, which they love, abound, 

 the crow-family visit the farmer's planted corn. They 

 soon find out that the old men set up about the field 

 have neither muscle, blood nor bone ; and they dig up 

 and devour the sprouting seed. Why? Because this 

 corn has become soft, and the bird can digest it. 



The wit and cunning of this bird in a clerical dress 

 is proved, when it becomes a tamed pet. A writer 

 in the Indiana Farmer says : ' ' We have a pet crow 

 that was taken from the nest last spring, and if there 

 is any thing that escapes him I do not know what it is. 

 He will carry away knives, spoons, forks, screw-driv- 



