326 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by William L,. Finley and H. T. Bohlman 



THE DINNER CALL 



Grasshoppers, mice, May beetles, mollusks, frogs, caterpillars, and 

 a score of other crow dainties are required to sate the appetite of 

 this inordinate voting feaster. 



ber of these birds appears to be about 

 the same. In the winter of 1910-1911 a 

 roost near Woodridge, D. C, which ap- 

 pears to have been the successor to the 

 Arlington roost, was estimated to con- 

 tain 270,000. while in 191 4 only about 

 30,000 birds could be accounted for. 



There is evidence that leads one to 

 think that in parts of Oklahoma some 

 of the roosts have increased materially 

 within recent years — a situation that may 

 have been brought about by the increas- 

 ing acreage of sorghum in that section, 

 as this grain serves as an admirable 

 winter food for these birds. Absolutely 

 no credence, however, need be given to 

 reports, which at times have had wide 

 circulation, of roosts totaling "millions 

 of birds." 



Crow roosts are 

 usually located in 

 sparsely settled sec- 

 tions, but with the 

 constant encroach- 

 ment of man on virgin 

 tracts the bird has 

 found it increasingly 

 difficult to find its 

 former seclusion. 

 Even in face of this, 

 the crow maintains its 

 interesting roosting 

 habit, with the result 

 that now we may wit- 

 ness this phenomenon 

 in places readily ac- 

 cessible. 



FAMOUS CROW COLO- 

 NIES NEAR WASH- 

 INGTON 



In the winter of 

 1912-1913. several 

 thousand crows es- 

 tablished a roost 

 northwest of Wash- 

 ington within a few 

 hundred feet of the 

 Connecticut Avenue 

 Boulevard, where trol- 

 ley cars and automo- 

 biles passed every few 

 minutes throughout 

 the night. 



The former location 

 of the Woodridge 

 roost, northeast of the National Capital, 

 was in a small strip of Virginia pines 

 near the station of Rives, on the Balti- 

 more and Ohio Railroad. The passing 

 trains caused no end of uproar while the 

 clans were assembling, but when dark- 

 ness came they paid little attention to 

 the noise. 



The present location of the Woodridge 

 roost, while in a more secluded place than 

 formerly, is still readily accessible and 

 forms an important attraction to the bird- 

 lovers of Washington. Just south of the 

 Bladensburg road and at a point about 

 one-third of a mile northeast of the 

 Pennsylvania Railroad bridge lies a tract 

 of woodland that extends in a long nar- 

 row strip to the south. 



At the southern end there is still much 



