4 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. 



In the case of cultivated fruits the loss is trivial. The same is true 

 of the eggs and young of poultry and wild birds, the total for the year 

 amounting to only 1 percent of the food. 



As an offset to his bad habits, the Crow is to be credited with the 

 good done in destroying noxious insects and other injurious animals. 

 Insects form 26 percent of the entire food, and the great majority of 

 these are grasshoppers, May beetles, cutworms, and other injurious 

 kinds. It is shown by Mr. Schwarz that during the May-beetle sea- 

 son, in May and June, these beetles form the principal insect food of 

 the Crow. Only a few stomachs do not contain them, and stomachs 

 are often filled with them. The fact that the May-beetle season coin- 

 cides with the breeding season of the Crow is of special importance, 

 the principal insect food of nestling Crows consisting of these beetles. 

 Mr. Schwarz also finds that grasshoppers occur in the stomachs through- 

 out the year ; that during the May-beetle season they occur in the vast 

 majority of stomachs, but usually in moderate numbers 5 that with the 

 disappearance of May beetles toward the end of June they increase in 

 number until in August and throughout the fall they constitute by 

 far the greater part of the insect food, often occurring in astonishing 

 numbers, and often forming the only insect food. 



To the same side of the scale must be added the destruction of mice, 

 rabbits, and other injurious rodents by the Crow. 



In summing up the benefits and losses resulting from the food habits 



of this bird, it is clear that the good exceeds the bad and that the 



Crow is a friend rather than an enemy of the farmer. 



Eespectfully, 



C. Hart Merriam, 



Chief of Division. 



Hon. Chas. W. Dabney, Jr., 



Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. 



