The Crow in Its Relation to Agriculture. 7 



Virginia and Oklahoma harbor crows in extremely large numbers, 

 and damage often results in places where crops are left in the fields 

 until late in fall. On the accompanying map (fig. 2) are recorded 

 crow roosts known to have been occupied in the winter of 1911-12. 



ECONOMIC STATUS. 



What a bird eats or does not eat is the first question to be answered 

 in an inquiry into its economic status. To determine with accuracy 

 the various items entering into its diet nothing has been found more 

 reliable than the examination of stomach contents. In the case of the 

 crow such examination has been made of an excellent series of 2,118 

 stomachs, collected in 40 States, the District of Columbia, and several 

 Canadian Provinces. Of these stomachs 1,340 were of adult crows 

 and 778 of nestlings. 



ANIMAL FOOD. 



About 28 per cent of the yearly food of the adult crow consists of 

 animal matter. In this are found insects, spiders, millipeds, crus- 

 taceans, snails, the remains of reptiles, amphibians, wild birds and 

 their eggs, poultry and their eggs, small mammals, and carrion. 



INSECTS. 



Over two-thirds of the animal food, or about a fifth of the whole 

 diet of the crow, is composed of insects, and these include many of 

 the most destructive pests with which the farmer has to deal. The 

 crow is primarily a terrestrial feeder. Its share of insects, there- 

 fore, is made up almost exclusively of species found on or near the 

 ground, or those which it secures from beneath the surface by turn- 

 ing over sticks, clods of earth, or dung. The latter is a common 

 method of feeding employed diligently by the crow from early 

 spring to the beginning of autumn, when the usual crop of grass- 

 hoppers furnishes a more accessible supply of food. 



Beetles of various kinds constitute about 7.5 per cent of the crow's 

 annual food. They are a promiscuous lot, some beneficial, some neu- 

 tral, and others, which comprise the major portion, highly injurious. 

 Among the injurious are May beetles and their larvae, white grubs; 

 also click beetles, weevils, and some of the ground beetles which have 

 vegetarian food habits. Orthoptera, including grasshoppers, locusts, 

 and crickets, form about an equal quantity (7.33 per cent), but 

 the damage this order of insects inflicts far exceeds that done by the 

 various beetles eaten. The short-horned grasshoppers especially are 

 destructive, and, while these insects have never been such serious 

 pests in the Eastern States as in some parts of the West, the annual 

 toll taken by them throughout the country amounts to many mil- 

 lions of dollars. In August and September grasshoppers form 



