SONG-BIRDS. Fish Crow 



Eggs : 4-7, greenish ground, stained and spotted with brown ; vari- 

 able both in size and colour. 

 Eange : North America, from the Fur Countries to Mexico. 



This is another bird that you may hunt from your woods, 

 shoot (if you can) in the fields, and destroy with poisoned 

 grain. Here he has not a single good mark against his name. 

 He is a cannibal, devouring both the eggs and young of 

 insect-destroying Song-birds ; he is a coward in all respects, 

 a convicted corn thief, and his own personality is extremely 

 disagreeable, owing to his harsh and persistent cawing. A 

 price is set upon his head, and his only picturesque quality 

 is a negative one, when he completes the dreariness of a 

 November landscape by napping solemnly over the stacked 

 corn-stalks in the brown fields. 



Samuels arraigns the Crow, and condemns him unhesita- 

 tingly to death; these are his statistics boiled 'down. In 

 January, February, and March, when the ground is snow- 

 covered, the Crows gain a scanty living from a few frozen 

 apples, stray insects, or field-mice, so that in these months 

 they may be said to be beneficial. They also eat insects to 

 a certain extent in April ; but how about their conduct in 

 the breeding-season ? In order to supply their young with 

 the daily eight ounces of food which they require, we find 

 that a pair of Crows destroys in one day alone young birds 

 that in the course of the season would have consumed a 

 hundred thousand insects. He has seen a pair of Crows 

 visit an orchard and destroy the young in two Robins' nests 

 in half an hour. Like evidence is everywhere attainable, 

 so we must condemn the Crows unhesitatingly to death. 



Fish Crow : Corvus ossifragus. 



Length : 14-16 inches. 



Male and Female : Glossy, purplish black. 



Song : Resembling the last species, but with a different intonation. 



Season : Summer resident. 



Breeds : Through range. 



Nest and Eggs : Hardly to be distinguished from those of the last 



species. 



Range : Atlantic coast, from Long Island to Florida. 



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