Conspicuously Black 



greater enemy of the birds. Like the common crows, this, their 

 smaller cousin, likes to congrejiate 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. 



II 



Fish Crow 



(Corvits ossifragus) Crow family 



Length — 14 to 16 inches. About half as large again as the robin. 

 Ma't; 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 



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