40 BULLETIN 621, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



A few other mammals were identified, but they form a negligible 

 portion of the adult crow's food. One bird collected in Wisconsin 

 in May had eaten a short-tailed shrew (Blarina brevwauda) which 

 practically filled the stomach. Two others secured in Maryland also 

 had fed on shrews. Moles (Scalopus) were found in two stomachs, 

 and a weasel (PutoHus) and bat in one each. A tooth of a house 

 cat was discovered in one stomach but was classed as carrion. 



It is evident that the crow's destruction of mammals must be con- 

 strued as a distinctly beneficial trait. ■ Its greatest activities along 

 this line are directed against rodents, in the control of which it 

 well supplements the good work of hawks and owls, which unfortu- 

 nately are now much too scarce in some sections. 



ANNOYANCE TO LIVE STOCK. 



The crow is accused of molesting and in some instances actually 

 killing live stock, as young lambs and swine, and no doubt in some 

 cases he is guilty. On this habit stomach examination sheds no 

 light, but in view of complaints that have reached the Biological 

 Survey it can not pass without comment, although these complaints 

 are isolated and few in number and doubtless comparatively little 

 aggregate loss has been suffered. 



Mrs. Emma E. Drew, of Burlington, Vt., writing under date of 

 January 4, 1912, says that in the country where sheep and lambs are 

 out in the fields, crows sometimes swoop down on to young lambs and 

 peck out their eyes; and that farmers in Au Sable Forks and Jay, 

 N. Y., complained bitterly of the crows in this respect. 



W. L. McAtee, of the Biological Survey, has informed the writer 

 that, on G. G. Hammond's farm, Squibnocket, Martha's Vineyard, 

 crows developed a habit of killing young merino lambs by pecking 

 into the brains, which, with the eyes, were eaten. More than 50 

 lambs were killed in 1908. A bounty of 50 cents" apiece was then 

 offered and resulted in the destruction of about 40 birds. There 

 has been no trouble since, and the normal number of lambs was 

 reared the following year. 



It is often difficult to determine the origin of such animal matter 

 as flesh and bone fragments found in stomachs of crows. This may 

 have been carrion or it may have been torn from the body of an 

 animal killed by the bird itself. It frequently happens, however, 

 that the stomach also contains insect remains, as carrion beetles 

 (Silphidse), short- winged scavenger beetles (Staphylinidse), tumble- 

 bugs (Canthon), or scavenger flies and their larvae and puparia, 

 which furnish strong circumstantial evidence of the character of 



