66 BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. 



and dropped by a corn planter. Some farmers object to tarring for 

 fear of clogging the planter. At Marshall Hall litne is used instead 

 of ashes, but most farmers who tar their corn discard the machine and 

 plant, in hills. 



The injur}^ to corn by crows at other seasons than sprouting time is, 

 as a general thing, comparatively insignificant, but in some years it 

 has been important when the ears were in the milk. Unfortunately 

 at the worst times no observations were made, though crows were 

 seen each summer feeding on corn in this stage of development, tear- 

 ing open the ears and picking out the kernels in rapid succession 

 (PL XI, fig. 2). In the National Zoological Park at Washington dur- 

 ing the summer of 1896, their depredations on an acre of corn in the 

 milk were watched and 50 percent of the crop was found to have been 

 ruined. The onl}^ scarecrows that proved efiective at Marshall Hall 

 were dead crows and strings stretched on poles around the field and hung 

 with long white streamers. Although in fall the number of marauders 

 is greatly increased b}^ reenf orcements from the North, ripe corn sus- 

 tains less injury than roasting ears. One reason is the fact that the 

 extracting of a few kernels from a ripe ear does not cause the rest 

 to rot, as is the case with roasting ears. Another reason is the abun- 

 dance of fall fruit. Wheat also suffers comparatively little. W^hen 

 it is ripening, cherries and sprouting corn divert the crows' attention. 

 After it is cut and gathered into the shock, however, they often join the 

 English sparrows in removing the kernels from the cap sheaves. In 

 November, 1899, they attacked newl}^ sown wheat also, cleaning every 

 kernel off' a patch of wet ground where the drill had failed to cover 

 the seed. The}^ were also observed in several instances pulling up 

 sprouting wheat. Oats are injured even less than wheat, though 

 crows have been noticed feeding on them at harvest time. 



Crow Blackbird. — ^The crow blackbird (fig. 25) takes grain to the 

 extent of 45 percent of its food, as Professor Beal has shown, and is 

 a bird that needs watching. The farmers at Marshall Hall complained 

 that it injured sprouting corn, but observations did not show the 

 damage to be serious. The only birds concerned in this work were those 

 in the breeding colony in the dell on the Hungerford farm. Except in 

 rare instances, they were not seen visiting the Br3^an farm at sprouting 

 time; consequenth^ they could not be held responsible for serious 

 injury there. On May 18, 1899, they were watched in their dell. The 

 parent birds kept going to and from their nests, which held eggs or 

 newh^ hatched 3^oung, and many foraged in an adjacent field of sprout- 

 ing corn. Nine old birds and four nestlings were collected, but only 

 one, an adult, had taken corn, and that one in trifling proportion. On 

 May 30, 1901, the colony was again visited. The j^oung were then 

 feathered and old enough to eat vegetable food. The most available 

 supply was a field of sprouting corn unprotected by tar, that lay within 



