6 



Farmers' Bulletin 1102. 



the East the hilly and partially wooded sections of New Jersey, New 

 York, and Pennsylvania seem to meet nesting requirements ; in Ohio, 

 Indiana, and Illinois the low fertile river bottoms are especially at- 

 tractive ; and farther west the limited tree growth confines the breed- 

 ing activities of crows to the neighborhood of streams. 



Crows raise one brood of from 3 to 7 young (see fig. 1). In the 

 Southern States the young may be found in the nest as early as the 

 middle of March and farther north correspondingly later, so that 

 along our northern border they may be present as late as July. The 

 nestling life lasts about three weeks. For some time after the brood 

 of the year has left the nest, in July, August, and September, crows 

 may be found in family parties or in small, loose flocks of 10 or a 



FIG. 2. Location of crow roosts known to have been occupied in the winter 



of 1911-12. 



dozen, securing much of their food from grasshoppers and ripening 

 corn. 



While crows are more or less clannish, even in the nesting season, 

 their gregarious habit is most highly developed during the colder 

 months, when, often by thousands, they resort to their nightly roosts. 

 This flocking is of considerable economic significance in that it re- 

 sults in the gathering together of large numbers of birds possessing 

 some injurious habits. In the latitude of Washington, D. C., their 

 roosts are well established by the end of September, and by midwinter 

 their combined southerly migration and gregarious habits have 

 brought together in a comparatively small area the bulk of the 

 crow population of North America. From October to March the 

 States lying in the area between Connecticut and Iowa and south to 



