50 THE COMMON CROW. 



that in all those localities the Crow preys regularly on snakes either 

 dead or alive, and there is no reason to doubt that its habits are the 

 same in this respect everywhere throughout its range. The stomachs 

 which contain remains of snakes represent most of the States already 

 mentioned, also Georgia, Florida, and Wisconsin. Probably half the 

 ophidian remnants in these stomachs were carrion, but the exact pro- 

 portion is not determinable. The annual average is about half of 1 per 

 cent (0.45 percent), but the average for May reaches 2J percent, and 

 during this month at least 1 stomach in eve^ 6 contained remains of 

 snakes, the average for the 62 stomachs exceeding 13 percent. It is 

 not probable, however, that the remnants in these stomachs represented 

 as many as 62 snakes, for in many cases a single snake sufficed for an 

 entire brood of young, and it rarely happened that parts of a snake 

 were found in one stomach of a brood and not in the others. 



It can hardly be claimed that in killing snakes Crows do any good, 

 and it may be fairly questioned whether some real harm is not done. 

 If the snakes were poisonous the case would be different, but so far as 

 observed all the victims were harmless species, most of which feed 

 largely on insects, mice, frogs, and similar food, the consumption of 

 which is advantageous, or at least not detrimental to the agriculturist. 

 On the other hand, the black snake and some other kinds destroy 

 insectivorous birds and eggs. But it is probable that most of the snakes 

 eaten by crows are carrion, killed by man, not by Crows. 



Crows eat a few lizards, but under ordinary circumstances they are 

 too active to be caught easily, and their protective coloration is an 

 additional safeguard. In the Northern United States lizards occur 

 sparingly or not at all, but from Maryland southward they are fairly 

 abundant; still, among several hundred Crow stomachs from the 

 Southern States traces of lizards were found in only one. A single 

 stomach, taken at Sandy Spring, Md., in May, contained the bones of a 

 small lizard (probably Sceloporus undulatus). 



Frogs and toads. — No animal food occurs more regularly in Crow 

 stomachs than remnants of frogs and toads. Toads are notoriously 

 clumsy and unfortunate, and it may be presumed that many, if not 

 most, of those found in the stomachs of Crows had been stepped on or 

 otherwise injured, and subsequently appropriated by the sable scaven- 

 gers. Frogs, on the other hand, rarely suffer from accidents of this 

 kind, and probably most of those eaten by Crows are captured alive. 

 The great abundance of frogs in most places accounts in some measure 

 for the frequency with which they are captured. 



It has been supposed that the peculiar acrid secretion of the skin of 

 the toad is a protection against natural enemies; and it has been 

 observed that few dogs can be induced to bite a toad, and after one 

 attempt they usually refuse to renew the attack, showing unmistakably 

 by their actions and by the free flow of saliva that the toad's secretion 

 is very unpleasant, if not actually painful. Whether or not this secre- 



