778 Crow Roosts and Roosting Crows. (September, 
my correspondent playfully hints of there being “ millions in it,” 
we may more safely place the number of crows resorting to his 
farm at night within two hundred thousand. 
Were we to accept as proven that the so-called Bristol roost, 
of which Godman speaks in 1830 as having contained a million 
crows, was situate on the west bank of the Delaware, it might be 
fair to assume that these two hundred thousand represent, at the 
present day, that mighty host of ancestors. However welcome 
such intelligence would be to many crow haters, it would be un- 
fair to infer that the proportion of crows living at present to the 
number living fifty years ago is as one to five. 
The experience of older residents of the country justifies the 
belief that great diminution has been made among the myriads 
and probably a census would show that the crow population of 
to-day is to that of 1830 as one to two. When we take a broad © 
view of this, it is easy to predict that, despite the increasing pai 
ning and wariness of the nineteenth century crow, he must either 
totally renounce his partiality for the haunts of men, or speedily 
become extinct. As this trait seems inextinguishable in the bird, 
mankind should seriously determine the economic relations of 
crows to men ere too late. This is fully worthy the impartial inves- 
tigations of the American Ornithologists’ Union, and we may well 
rejoice to see that the cause of an unjustly persecuted bird 18:0 
longer left to the tender mercies of interested farmers, indiscrim!- 
nate gunners, and uninformed legislators. In investigating this 
subject, I am led to think that very large roosts are nowadays 
less popular than formerly, or, in other words, that roosts have 
increased in numbers as the crows have diminished. ; 
By sad experience they have found that unlimited union F 
weakness rather than strength,and have divided into smaller an 
more numerous companies, each having its favorite and giare? 
locality, to which every member shows inviolate attachmen 
during winter. . 
I am unable to discover that any roost exists in Pennsylvania, 
other than the one just mentioned, on the farm of Alfred Moore. 
= This is inexplicable, as the conditions of this place no De 
answer the requirements of a roosting crow than EE 
_ other places in the neighboring counties. It goes to prove Re 
a crow must inherit an attachment to localities even unto the fas 
: : ‘generation, nay, even unto death. 
