40 BULLETIN 621, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
A few other mammals were identified, but they form a negligible 
portion of the adult crow's food. One bird collected in Wisconsin 
in May had eaten a short-tailed shrew (Blarina hrevicauda) which 
practically filled the stomach. Two others secured in Maryland also 
had fed on shrews. Moles (Sccdopus) were found in two stomachs, 
and a weasel (Putorius) and bat in one each. A tooth of a house 
cat was discovered in one stomach but was classed as carrion. 
It is evident that the crow's destruction of mammals must be con- 
strued as a distinctly beneficial trait. Its greatest activities along 
this line are directed against rodents, in the control of which it 
well supplements the good work of hawks and owls, which unfortu- 
nately are now much too scarce in some sections. 
ANNOYANCE TO LIVE STOCK. 
The crow is accused of molesting and in some instances actually 
killing live stock, as young lambs and swine, and no doubt in some 
cases he is guilty. On this habit stomach examination sheds no 
light, but in view of complaints that have reached the Biological 
Survey it can not pass without comment, although these complaints 
are isolated and few in number and doubtless comparatively little 
aggregate loss has been suffered. 
Mrs. Emma E. Drew, of Burlington, Vt., writing under date of 
January 4, 1912, says that in the country where sheep and lambs are 
out in the fields, crows sometimes swoop down on to young lambs and 
peck out their eyes; and that farmers in Au Sable Forks and Jay, 
N. Y., complained bitterly of the crows in this respect. 
W. L. McAtee, of the Biological Survey, has informed the writer 
that, on G. G. Hammond's farm, Squibnocket, Martha's Vineyard, 
crows developed a habit of killing young merino lambs by pecking 
into the brains, which, with the eyes, were eaten. More than 50 
lambs were killed in 1908. A bounty of 50 cents apiece was then 
offered and resulted in the destruction of about 40 birds. There 
has been no trouble since, and the normal number of lambs was 
reared the following year. 
CAEEION. 
It is often difficult to determine the origin of such animal matter 
as flesh and bone fragments found in stomachs of crows. This may 
have been carrion or it may have been torn from the body of an 
animal killed by the bird itself. It frequently happens, however, 
that the stomach also contains insect remains, as carrion beetles 
(Silphidse), short- winged scavenger beetles (Staphylinidse), tumble- 
bugs (Oanthon), or scavenger flies and their larvae and puparia, 
which furnish strong circumstantial evidence of the character of 
