THE CROW AND ITS RELATION • TO MAN. 39 
recorded. March to July, inclusive, is the time of year when the 
greater part of this food is eaten, the maximum quantity (2.65 per 
cent) being taken in May. 
Cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus spp.), especially the young, were 
the rodents most frequently taken by adult crows, being found in 21 
stomachs. It is doubtful whether crows during the breeding season 
play a less important part in the control of these animals than do 
any of the birds of prey. In areas where cottontails are plentiful 
they form an important part of the food of nestling crows (see page 
66) and, quite naturally, the parent birds subsist on much the same 
fare. This food habit appears to be universal, records coming from 
all parts of the country. In four instances cottontails formed over 
half the stomach contents. 
The following account of an attack by a crow upon a cottontail is 
given by Prof. W. B. Barrows: 1 
On one occasion the writer saw a tragedy of this kind while driving along a 
Maryland road in June. A crow suddenly sailed over the fence and alighted 
in the road about 100 yards ahead of the horse. As he lit, he struck savagely 
with his bill at some dark object on the ground which tried to escape by jump- 
ing from side to side, but the crow followed each motion, striking quickly and 
heavily each time until the animal lay quiet, when, after a thorough pound- 
ing, the bird prepared to tear his quarry to pieces. Alarmed by the near ap- 
proach of the wagon, he seized his prey in his bill and flew heavily over the 
bushes which fringed the road. Creeping to the fence I was able to identify 
the victim as a young rabbit, and subsequently found its tracks in the road at 
the point where the crow had attacked it. My companion said that usually 
he had seen young rabbits at this place in the road for a week past, but 
this was the first time he had seen one attacked by a crow. 
Of the smaller rodents, meadow mice {Microtus) are the favorite 
food of the crow. They were identified in 20 of the 1,340 stomachs', 
in some of which they constituted a substantial portion of the diet. 
In one stomach, collected in New York in March, a meadow mouse 
made up 87 per cent of the contents ; in another from the same State 
two individuals composed 38 per cent of the food; and in 5 others 
such rodents formed over three-fifths of the diet. Remains of white- 
footed mice (Peromyscws) were present in 5 stomachs, in one of 
which they amounted -to 60 per cent of the contents. House mice 
(Mus musculus) were eaten by 5 crows. A brown rat (Eattus nor- 
vegicus) was captured by one. Four of five crows collected in 
Louisiana in January had fed on apparently more than one cotton 
rat (Sigmodon hispidus). The birds were secured at the same time 
and place and all probably were engaged in the same hunt. A 
harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys) and a pocket gopher (Thomomys) 
also were found in separate stomachs. 
1 Barrows, W. B., The Common Crow of the United States : U. S. Dept. Agr., Div. 
Ornithol. and Mamm, Bull. No. 6, pp. 31-32, 1895. 
