4 BULLETIN 621, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
District of Columbia and southern Illinois. The Florida crow (C. b. 
pasouus Coues) has a limited range throughout peninsular Florida. 
The two remaining species of the genus Corvus are the maritime 
forms, the fish crow (Corvus ossifragus Wilson) and the northwestern 
crow (Corvus caurinus Baird). The former is restricted to the At- 
lantic seacoast from Long Island south to Florida and westward 
along the Gulf coast to Texas ; while the latter occupies the northwest 
coastal region from Puget Sound to southern Alaska. 
In this bulletin the name " crow " has been used to cover the four 
subspecifically different forms recognized under Corvus brachy- 
rhynchos. The food habits of these subspecies are essentially the 
same, varying only to the extent naturally occasioned by the varying 
character of the food supply in the different parts of an area as great 
as that covered by their combined ranges. In some of the Western 
States where the crow appears only as an occasional breeder it has 
but little economic significance. Among such areas may be men- 
tioned all of Nevada, the greater parts of Arizona, New Mexico, 
Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho, and eastern Washington and 
Oregon. The bird is only locally abundant in California. The 
western parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska support 
very few crows, while Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, 
as well as the Gulf States of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and 
Louisiana, embrace large areas where crows are not common. 
A consideration of the economic value of the crow in the United 
States, judging from the average yearly abundance, may therefore 
be confined principally to the States along the Atlantic slope of the 
Appalachians and those in the central and upper Mississippi Valley. 
In the former area the States south of Virginia are less abundantly 
supplied with these birds during the breeding season than those to 
the north, while in winter the States of North Dakota, South Dakota, 
Minnesota, and the northern parts of Wisconsin, Michigan, and 
Maine harbor but few. 
LIFE HISTORY. 
A brief statement of the life history of the crow is necessary if 
its varied activities at different seasons of the year are to be appre- 
ciated and if the significance of its change of food habits from 
month to month is to be understood. A clear understanding of the 
breeding habits of the crow is essential also to a correct interpreta- 
tion of the food habits of the young; and scarcely less important in 
this connection is the problem of the bird's migration and roosting 
habits in the colder months, when the normal crow population of 
certain sections is swelled manyfold by countless hordes from the 
north. 
