48 USEFUL BIRDS. 



seems quite probable that a young bird at liberty, depend- 

 ing largely on its own exertions to procure food, and thus 

 exercising more than in confinement, would require still 

 more food to repair the consequent extra waste of the 

 tissues. 



Others have made similar experiments with Crows in con- 

 finement. Samuels says that he has kept specimens in cap- 

 tivity, and has proved by observation that at least eight 

 ounces of such food as frogs, fish, etc., are eaten daily by 

 our common Crow. He says that a Crow can live on a very 

 limited allowance, but believes eight ounces to be a reasonable 

 amount. He leaves us to infer that he is speaking of adult 

 Crows, which undoubtedly require less food than their grow- 

 ing young. 1 



Weed and Dearborn kept a wounded adult Crow in a small 

 box, twelve by thirteen by twenty inches. In these cramped 

 quarters, where the bird could hardly stretch its wings, it 

 ate fish for three days in succession at the rate of four and 

 eighty-three hundredths ounces per day, more than a 

 quarter of its own weight, or about half what our young 

 Crows ordinarily required. 2 



Probably the amount of food eaten by this captive bears 

 about the same proportion to the quantity eaten by a vigor- 

 ous Crow at liberty that the food taken by a prisoner in 

 solitary confinement, or that consumed by a sedentary clerk, 

 bears to the amount required by a strong man at hard labor, 

 or by a prize-fighter in training. 



The amount of food taken by young birds could not be 

 disposed of by such limited powers of digestion as are given 

 to other animals. What a wonderful contrast is presented 

 between the quantity of food required by the hot-blooded, 

 quick-pulsing, active bird, and that needed by the cold- 

 blooded vertebrates. Many reptiles can live for months 

 without food. Even some of the mammals do not eat at 

 all during their hibernation. 



1 Birds of New England, by Edward A. Samuels, 1870, p. 359. 



2 Birds in their Relations to Man, by Clarence M. Weed and Ned Dearborn, 

 1903, p. 61. 



