Conspicuously Black 
greater enemy of the birds. Like the common crows, this, their 
smaller cousin, likes to congregate in winter along the seacoast 
to feed upon shell-fish and other sea-food that the tide brings to 
its feet. 
Samuels claims to have seen a pair of crows visit an orchard 
and destroy the young in two robins’ nests in half an hour. He 
calculates that two crows kill, in one day alone, young birds that 
in the course of the season would have eaten a hundred thousand 
insects. When, in addition to these atrocities, we remember the 
crow’s depredations in the corn-field, it is small wonder that 
among the first laws enacted in New York State was one offering 
a reward for its head. But the more scientific agriculturists now 
concede that the crow is the farmer’s true friend. 
Fish Crow 
(Corvus ossifragus) Crow family 
Length—14to 16inches. About half as large again as the robin. 
Male and Female—Glossy black, with purplish-blue reflections, 
generally greener underneath. Chin naked. 
Range—Along Atlantic coast and that of the Gulf of Mexico, 
northward to southern New England. Rare stragglers on 
the Pacific coast. . 
Migrations—March or April. September. Summer resident only 
at northern limit of range. Is found in Hudson River valley 
about half-way to Albany. 
Compared with the common crow, with which it is often 
confounded, the fish crow is of much smaller, more slender 
build. Thus its flight is less labored and more like a gull’s, 
whose habit of catching fish that may be swimming near the 
surface of the water it sometimes adopts. Both Audubon and 
Wilson, who first made this species known, record its habit of 
snatching food as it flies over the southern waters—a rare practice 
at the north. Its plumage, too, differs slightly from the common 
crow’s in being a richer black everywhere, and particularly 
underneath, where the ‘‘corn thief” is dull. But it is the dif- 
ference between the two crows’ call-note that we chiefly depend 
upon to distinguish these confusing cousins. To say that the 
fish crow says car-r-r instead of a loud, clear caw, means little 
42 
