THE IOWA ORNlTHOIvOGIST. 



59 



es and spots of brown. The 

 spots and blotches seem to be 

 quite uniformly deirk brown, al- 

 most black, althoug-h the distribu- 

 tion over the surface is varied. 

 The nest is composed of twig-s, 

 corn-stalks, leaves, roots, weeds 

 and bark, deeply hollowed, 

 strong-ly built and tirmly placed; 

 lined with g"rass, inner bark, 

 hair, moss, and g-enerally pieces 

 of binding- twine, in this locclit}'. 

 The heig-ht varies from 8 to 40 

 feet. As a scaveng-er the crow 

 has no friends here, his methods 

 are too slow to be of noticeable 

 benefit. Thoug-h he does away 

 with much corn in the spring- 

 time, his continued assaults upon 

 the cut-worm are a strong- point 

 in his favor." (Frank H. Shoe- 

 maker.) "The American Crow 

 is abundant in this county and 

 always met with during- my 

 Ornitholog-ical rambles. In this 

 locality it is partial to the v/ooded 

 river bottoms, during- the breeding- 

 season it can also be found in 

 small g-roves, remaining- during- 

 winter in the heavy timber along- 

 the Des Moines River bottoms and 

 vicinity. During- winter, early 

 in the morning- it is a common 

 sig-ht to see two or three, some- 

 times larg-e flocks of crows flying- 

 across the prairie to some faA'^orite 

 feeding- ground, toward dusk 

 ag-ain returning- to the heavy 

 timber where the}' roost in larg-e 

 colonies. During- seasons of 

 scarcity I have observed that 



they eat larg-e quantities of 

 carrion. Wherever a dead horse, 

 cow or dog- has been drag-g-ed, 

 usually in a sloug-h, there can be 

 found one or more, sometimes 

 thirty and forty crows hard at 

 work feeding-. Stomachs ex- 

 amined have contained injurious 

 insects, Indian corn, small g-rain 

 and carrion. The nest is built 

 in woods and g-roves. Of man}- 

 sets in my collection ^ of them 

 were found in heavy timber, the 

 balance in g-roves. The nesting- 

 season is in March, April and 

 May. By April first the nests 

 are g-enerally finished in this 

 county. The sets collected 

 during- '93 are as follows. 



Set I, April 9, 1893 Ames, Iowa 

 collected by Joe Weidman and 

 Carl Fritz Henning-. Nest in 

 soft maple g-rove, 34 feet up, 

 bird on nest. Five cg-g-s, incu- 

 bated, three of them are dark 

 olive g-reen thickly spotted and 

 blotched with dark brown and 

 line blotches and dots of black; 

 one is evenl}' marked, another 

 heavily blotched at larg-er end, 

 third, heavily blotched at smaller 

 end; the remaining- two are a 

 lig-hter shade of olive g-reen, 

 blotched with lig-ht brown and 

 few fine black dots, cliiefly 

 about the larg-er end 1.54x1.15; 

 1.67x1.13; 1.55x1.17; 1.55x1.16; 

 1.56x1.14. 



Set .11, April 12, 1893 Boone, 

 Iowa; Nest in larg-e tree 

 35 feet up. Crow on nest, 



