200 BIRDS OF ALABAMA 



Nests with eggs have been found at Leighton, March 18, 

 March 28, and April 14 ; and at Autaugaville, March 23. 



General habits, — In habits the southern crow does not dif- 

 fer much from its northern relative. It is partial to open or 

 partly wooded country and seems to prefer pine timber for 

 nesting purposes. Although usually gregarious the southern 

 birds are rarely seen in large flocks. They forage in a great 

 variety of situations — cultivated fields, timber tracts, river 

 shores, and the hammocks and pine flats in the coast region. 

 No such extensive roosts as are found in many localities are 

 known in the State, but Holt reports about 100 birds at 

 Leighton in July, 1913, roosting regularly in a small, tract of 

 woodland with little blue herons (Florida eseridea). The 

 nests are placed in trees, pines being most often selected, 

 but oaks and other deciduous trees are frequently used; the 

 nest may be in a fork against the trunk or well out on a 

 branch, usually from 20 to 60 feet above the ground. 



Food habits. — The food of the crow has been exhaustively 

 studied by E. R. Kalmbach of the Biological Survey. He finds 

 that it is composed of about 72 per cent vegetable matter and 

 28 per cent animal. The animal food is considered of the 

 greatest economic importance, comprising beetles, grasshop- 

 pers, locusts, crickets, caterpillars, cutworms, bugs, and other 

 insects ; crawfish, mollusks, fish, snakes, lizards, salamanders, 

 field mice and rats, young rabbits, and the eggs and young 

 of wild birds. Of the vegetable food, corn furnishes the prin- 

 cipal item, amounting to over 38 per cent of the total food of 

 adult crows; wheat, oats, and other small grains are eaten to 

 a less extent; wild fruits, including sumac, poison ivy, poison 

 oak, bayberry, wax myrtle, greenbrier, Virginia creeper, sour 

 gum, dogwood, and many others, compose about 14 per cent 

 of the food. After summing up the economic status of the 

 crow, Kalmbach adds : 



"The attitude of the individual farmer toward the crow should 

 be one of toleraton when no serious losses are suffered, rather 

 than one of uncompromising antagonism resulting in the unwar- 

 ranted destruction of these birds, which at times are most 

 valuable aids to man."t 



tKalmbach, E. E., The crow and its relation to man: Bull. 621, U. S. Dept, Agr., 

 pp. 86-86, 1918. 



