THE AMERICAN CROW. 407 



parks they seem to know that they will not be shot at, and here one finds them 

 frequently not nearly so cautious. In other sections, especially on the Pacific 

 Coast, where they are not much molested, they are more familiar and compara- 

 tively tame, allowing a person to approach them closely, both while feeding on 

 the ground and when perched in trees. Their cunning in evading the fai-inei''s 

 shotgun is only too well known, and many amusing stories are told about these 

 birds in this connection. 



Opinions differ greatly as to the economic value of the Crow, and even 

 with the most careful research it can not be accurately determined. "V^Tiile there 

 is no doubt that these birds do considerable damage at times to the growing 

 crops, and especially to Indian com, and that they destroy the young and eggs 

 of some of our insect-eating birds, on the other hand it is equally certain that 

 they do much good, and it is almost safe to assert that the harm done by them 

 in a general way is pretty nearly, if not fully, compensated for by the good they 

 do in the destruction of numerous noxious insects of all kinds and field mice, 

 as most of their food is obtained on the ground. While I can not enter into 

 details as to their food as fully as these birds perhaps deserve, in justice to them 

 I can say that from examinations made by the United States Department of 

 Agriculture of a large number of stomachs, and covering every month in the 

 year, the results obtained show that at least two-thirds of the food of nestlings 

 consists of animal matter, and that this kind of food also exceeds the vegetable 

 matter consumed by adults during the spring and summer months, while in the 

 late fall and winter the reverse is the case. Indian corn seems to be the staple 

 vegetable food of the Crow in winter, and it is more than probable that a con- 

 siderable portion of this is of no especial economic value, and is picked up in the 

 field after the crop has been harvested. Wheat, oats, barley, rye, and buck- 

 wheat are also eaten by them, but to a much less extent, while acorns, chestnuts, 

 beechnuts, the berries of the poison oak or ivy {Bhus), the flowering dogwood 

 (Cornus floridd), sour gum (Nyssa), the cedar, and a number of smaller seeds 

 and different kinds of wild and cultivated fruits also enter into their bill of fare. 



During the spring, summer, and fall months insects of all kinds, the seven- 

 teen-year locust (^Cicada), May beetles {LacJinosternd), June beetles {AUorJuna), 

 and especially their larvae, the well-known white grubs so injurious to all kinds 

 of vegetation, grasshoppers, crickets, cutworms, and angleworms, even carrion- 

 beetles, spiders and their eggs, field mice, snakes, frogs, salamanders, lizards, 

 small turtles, fish, snails, crawfish and other small crustaceans, carrion, and offal 

 generally — in fact, anything washed up by the tides or found along the shores 

 of our larger rivers — constitute the bulk of their food. In the West, where occa- 

 sionally armies of the large wingless cricket {Anabes simplex) and hosts of locusts 

 devour every green blade on their line of march, the Crows destroy enormous 

 numbers of these pests; like them, they seem to be always hungry and able to 

 find room for just one more, and although generally in poor condition throughout 

 the greater part of the year, in such localities they soon wax fat, and they do an 

 immense amount of good, which is rarely taken into consideration, however, by 

 the average farmer, who sees in the Crow an enemy at all times. 



