1194 



Canadian Forestry Journal, July, 1917 



About the Common Crow 



By Norman Griddle, 



Dominion Entomological Laboratory, Treeshank,' Man-. 



THERE is probably no bird that 

 has been more generally con- 

 demned by the public than the 

 crow and I have little doubt that fully 

 ninety people out of every hundred 

 would subscribe to such an opinion, 

 fully believing themselves to be right. 

 This, I think, is largely due to the fact 

 that its misdeeds are mostly of a 

 prominent nature and easily ob- 

 served, while its benefits pass un- 

 noticed. Thus a crow carrying off 

 a young bird is apt to attract atten- 

 tion; there will be the cries of the 

 parents or perhaps the nestlings are 

 known, whereas the same crow 

 might pick up thousands of noxious 

 insects without any one being any 

 the wiser; indeed its presence would 

 probably lead to its being accused 

 of some fresh atrocity. And so, no 

 matter how a nest is ravaged — be 

 the offender cat, dog, coyote, skunk, 

 squirrel or hawk — if there is a crow 

 in the neighborhood he is the thief 

 without doubt, and another cry goes 

 up about his inicjuities. 



There is another point that is either 

 overlooked or ignored by those con- 

 demning crows. As I have pointed 

 out above, these birds make a prac- 

 tice of watching mankind, being 

 probably on the look out for food. 

 Thus a man visiting another bird's 

 nest is more often than not seen by a 

 crow, moreover, he disturbs the 

 brooding bird in broad daylight. 

 Thus, there is every chance of the 

 crow discovering the nest. Com- 

 pare these artificial conditions with 

 natural ones and we see at once, that 

 they are totally dissimilar. An ex- 

 cellent illustration of this has been 

 supplied by a violent anti-crow ad- 

 vocate from whose statement the 

 following is taken: "I have watched 

 Mr. Crow for many springs and I 

 find him getting more and more 

 numerous and hungry every year. 

 I have found prairie, chickens and 



grouse nests and marked them to keep 

 watch and found that the crow got 

 two out of every three before hatch- 

 ing." He goes on to speak of a blue- 

 jay's nest. "I watched and passed 

 this nest two or three times every 

 day. When almost ready for hatch- 

 ing I heard a great commotion in 

 Jayville and found the nest robbed 

 by Mr. Crow." The italics are 

 mine. Almost all the arguments as 

 to crow habits follow this line of 

 reasoning. 



The Injury Done by Crows 



In Eastern Canada and through- 

 out the corn belt of the United States 

 the chief complaint against crows is 

 that they destroy much sprouting 

 corn for which they soon acquire a 

 taste, thus not only causing severe 

 loss, but necessitating the treatment 

 of the seed with a tar preparation as 

 a deterrent. In Western Canada, 

 however, we have not as yet suf- 

 fered to any appreciable extent from 

 injury of this nature, due doubtless 

 to the comparatively small amount 

 of corn grown. With reference to 

 the destruction of other cereals, this 

 is chiefly confined to grain in the 

 stock when large flocks of crows 

 make a habit of visiting certain 

 fields daily. The injury, however, 

 is not usually as severe as might be 

 expected, owing to the fact that 

 the birds really pick up a large pro- 

 portion of insects. 



The Value oj Crows 



It is common knowledge to every 

 farmer that crows are constantly in 

 attendance behind the plough, cul- 

 tivator or harrow, not, as has been 

 claimed, to pick up the seeds, but 

 to feed upon the various larvae such 

 as cutworms, wireworms, and white 

 grubs that are exposed, especially 

 the last two pests. I have seen 

 white grubs in heavily infested fields 



