CORVUS THE CROW 599 



and an increase of Crows is quite sure to be followed by had to send to England and the Middle States for hay to 



a decrease of Robins, or vice versa. Mr. Harrison F. feed their cattle and carry them through the winter The 



Lewis furnishes some figures which may signify such Crow is a tremendous destroyer of grubs and grasshop- 



fluctuations. From May 17 to June 5, 1920, he counted pers, and while we may have too many Crows, it is pos- 



the number of Crows and Robins that he saw daily in sible to have too few. 



the Province of Quebec, and from June 7 to June 27 he The Crow has some good qualities. He is an enter- 



did the same in Nova Scotia. The average numbers seen taining rascal. To begin with, he is a great mimic I 



daily were : In Quebec, 18.5 Crows and 12.4 Robins ; in have heard the most remarkable notes from wild Crows, 



Nova Scotia, 12.9 Crows and 41.1 Robins. Here it would seeming imitations of Cuckoos and Owls, and a perfect 



seem that a moderate decrease in the number of Crows mimicry of the whining of a puppy, a' correspondent 



had resulted in a considerable increase in Robins. Of from New Hampshire reports Crows making sounds like 



course, this one example is hardly sufficient to establish the distant barking of dogs, the squawking of hens, the 



a fact, but such a proportion would not be unexpected. efforts of a young cockerel trying to crow. Another 



When the behavior of Crows is looked at from our correspondent saw a Crow hold its head well up, curve 



standpoint they appear to do considerable harm. The the back of the neck and say. Oh, oh, oh, slowly, in a 



good that they do is neither seen nor appreciated. It is 

 well to shoot Crows (if we can) when they are doing 

 injury to our property, but it is quite possible to overdo 

 the shooting. To cite but one instance: Some years ago 

 one of my friends who had 

 a large sheep farm found 

 that Crows were killing his 

 young lambs, first pecking 

 out their eyes and then eat- 

 ing more or less of their 

 carcasses. When he had 

 lost about two hundred 

 lambs he offered a bounty 

 of fifty cents a head on any 

 and all crows, although J 

 had advised against it. The 

 neighboring gunners soon 

 very nearly extirpated the 

 Crows from that immediate 

 region. About three years 

 later my friend found that 

 the grass in his pastures 



tone which might have been given by a "soft-voiced 

 young woman." Another believes that he heard a Crow 

 emit a sound like the "laugh of a loon ;" another heard 

 a Crow produce a rattling sound, like the drumming of a 



Woodpecker, accompanied 

 by violent movements of its 

 head, body and tail. An 

 imitative Crow was seen 

 and heard to "honk like a 

 goose." Last summer I 

 heard one repeating inter- 

 mittently for an hour in the 

 early morning the syllables 

 clock'ity clock, clock'ity 

 clock. All the above calls 

 seem rather unusual, but 

 Crows normally utter a va- 

 riety of cries. 



In the love season some 

 rather melodious notes are 

 given, which perhaps rep- 



Photograph by Arthur A. Allen rCSCUt the SOng of the Sablc 



was dead, destroyed at the CROWS HAVE THE "NAME," SO THEY GET THE "GAME" bird. Often his antics at 

 roots by white grubs which Known as a thief, he lives up to his name, for the crow will this season are ludicrous, 

 had increased rapidly soon ^^^^^ ^"d eat almost anything that it can get its bill or claws on. j^e genuflexions and awk- 

 after the Crows were extirpated. Possibly some of the ward caresses with which he greets his dark inamorata 



dead lambs on which the Crows were seen feeding may 

 have died of disease; others may have been killed by 

 foxes. Probably only a few Crows had contracted the 

 habit of killing lambs, and if my friend had set one good 

 man to watch and kill these few culprits, he might have 

 saved both lambs and pastures. 



In the fourth decade of the Eighteenth century the 

 people of all the New England colonies enacted laws for 

 the destruction of Crows and Blackbirds. Heads of 

 these birds were accepted in lieu of taxes in some towns. 

 A bounty on the heads was paid in many. In Truro, 

 on Cape Cod, every married man was required yearly to 

 kill a certain number, and no single man could marry 

 legally until he had turned in his quota of heads. As 

 a result of all this the birds were nearly exterminated, 

 and in 1749 the grass crop was practically destroyed by 

 grubs, grasshoppers, cutworms, etc., so that the farmers 



must be seen to be appreciated. 



I am not sure that his family ties are always all that 

 they should be, for how can we account for the fact that 

 sometimes three Crows are seen about one nest? This is 

 not an uncommon occurrence in southern New England, 

 and Mr. Frank Novak, of Fairfield, Connecticut, tells me 

 that in 1920 three Crows there were feeding young in 

 one nest. Only last summer the classic shades of the 

 Back Bay in Boston were scandalized by a spectacle of 

 this "eternal triangle." Mr. Harry V. Long, who lives 

 in the neighborhood, says that three birds played up 

 and down Commonwealth avenue with sticks in their 

 beaks for a week or more before they decided just where 

 to build. Often during the building there were two birds 

 in the nest arranging sticks, while the third was an in- 

 terested spectator on a branch just above it. After the 

 two left, the third dropped into the nest to fix things to 



