50 BULLETIN 621, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
crows inflict considerable injury to buckwheat in the vicinity of 
Gilboa, N. Y. 
Injury to kafir corn (sorghum) in autumn has been reported from 
Kansas and Oklahoma. These depredations usually have been in the 
vicinity of roosts, where, during the roosting period, many thousands 
of crows are congregated and day after day feed over a comparatively 
small area. Stomach analysis sheds little light on this habit, as only 
5 stomachs contained the grain, but an idea of the severity of the 
attacks may be gained from the following communication from 
George W. Seigel, of Chetopa, Kans. : 
As to kafir corn, which is to become a staple crop here, they [crows] simply 
eat all the grain. The kafir fodder, which is a fine stover feed, is of such a 
juicy nature that it will not stand stacking. When the crows were taking ours 
so persistently in the shock we hauled it in and stacked it in the barn. This 
molded so badly that the fodder was not fit to use and what was stacked out- 
doors rotted. 
F. F. Crevecoeur, of Onaga, Kans., reports that crows damaged 
about 50 bushels of kafir corn on one farm near a crow roost. 
Rye was found in six stomachs. 
MISCELLANEOUS CEOPS. 
The crow is guilty of damage to many crops which* from the 
nature of their vegetable composition, can not be detected or accu- 
rately separated from other items of the stomach contents. Among 
these may be mentioned numerous fleshy fruits, as apples, pears, and 
primes; the rind and pulp of melons; the meat of nuts which have 
been partly digested and fail to have fragments of the shell asso- 
ciated; and the fragmentary remains of some tubers. Though 
many of these have been satisfactorily identified in stomachs, the 
presence of small quantities intimately mixed with other material is 
probably many times overlooked. Here again conclusions must be 
based to a certain extent on the evidence furnished by field observers. 
Though 186 of the 1,340 adult crows had fed on what appeared to 
be cultivated fruit, 47 of these records were made from the 1st of 
November to the end of May, when the fruit eaten must necessarily 
have been waste. Frozen apples or inferior pumpkins left in the 
fields after harvest are highly prized by foraging crows late in 
winter and apparently are sources from which some of the birds 
examined had secured food. The seeds of certain cultivated fruits, 
as blackberries, mulberries, grapes, and strawberries, are so similar 
in appearance to wild varieties growing in the same areas and ripen- 
ing at the same time, that it was impossible satisfactorily to classify 
many of them. It is highly probable that many of the fruits sup- 
posed to have been pilfered from the farmer's crop really were secured 
from nature's ample supply. Evidence furnished by stomach analy- 
