GKAIN. 



65 



Sassafras planted by birds on arable land is not so easily exterminated. 

 On the Hungerford farm it almost choked a peach orchard of several 

 acres. On the Bryan farm it attained such a growth in a cornfield 

 previoush^ used for grass that it had to be cut down with brush hooks 

 (PL XI, fig. 1). In another part of the same lot high-bush blackber- 

 ries sown by birds had to be similarly eradicated. 



v.— GRAIN. 



Grain had entered into the food of 38 out of the 645 birds examined. 

 Of these 21 had picked up waste kernels and 17 had secured valuable 

 grain, which, however, amounted to but 1.25 per cent of the food of 

 all the birds. 



Crow. — The crow (fig. 24) is by 

 all odds the worst pilferer of the 

 cornfield. Every year at Marshall 

 Hall, as elsewhere, a part of the 

 field must be replanted because of 

 his 'pickings and stealings.' In 

 1899 the replanting was more ex- 

 tensive than usual, requiring on 

 the 39-acre field 1 bushel 2i pecks, 

 46 percent of the 3^ bushels origi- 

 nally planted. This unusual ratio 

 was probably caused by the fail- 

 ure of the cherry crop, which left 

 the crow short of food. The pro- 

 tective device of tarring seed corn 

 is employed to some extent on the 

 Hungerford farm. In June, 1899, 

 I planted two rows of corn, one 

 tarred, on the edge of lot 4, near 

 a nest of 3^oung crows. When the 

 seed sprouted 3 kernels were pulled from the untarred row, and 7 

 plants were uprooted from the tarred row, the kernels of which were 

 left intact. On May 30, 1901, a field of sprouting tarred corn on the 

 Hungerford place was visited. In spite of the fact that a field of 

 unprotected corn adjoined it, crows came to this field, perhaps because 

 it was nearer woods. After three of them had walked about among 

 the hills for fifteen minutes the place was inspected. Only three 

 plants had been pulled up, but in each case the grain had been 

 removed. It may be mentioned here that at Wayland, Mass., during 

 June, 1901, crows pulled a large quantity of tarred corn, but did not eat 

 it. The corn there had been coated with wood ashes after the tarring 

 7222— No. 17—02 5 



Fig. 24. — Common crow. 



