THE CROW 
345 
f 
THE CROW. 
FRED BERNINGHAUSEN. 
The crow is the most harmful bird. He feeds on carrion and 
also carries ho^ cholera by feeding on the dead hogs. He com- 
mences feeding at the ear and there takes his fill, then flies from 
one farm to another and so carries the disease. Loss from hog 
cholera three years ago was ninety-nine thousand and nine hun- 
dred and ninety hogs ; two years ago it amounted to one hundred 
forty-seven thousand six hundred and seventy. The crow will 
carry the foot and mouth disease in the same way and also de- 
stroys the newborn sheep in the pasture by picking out their eyes. 
Three years ago the loss to the United States on account of 
weeds was one hundred forty million dollars, now the report is 
two hundred million dollars a year. Iowa is an agricultural state 
and we lose a large part of this money. We have three kinds of 
ground sparrows and they destroy in Iowa one hundred seventy^ 
five tons of weed seed every year. These birds begin nesting in 
the month of March and raise young ones until August. The 
crow flies over the ground where the farmer puts in his oats and 
destroys the nests of the ground sparrows which are between the 
corn stalks on the ground. When the ground was new the crow 
fed on grub worms but now as there are but few grub worms he 
feeds on the young ground sparrows. 
He is also a destroyer of the wild canary bird which nests 
about ten to twenty rods from a farm building in the tassel of 
the corn. This leads people to think the crow goes after the corn, 
but if he was going to eat corn he would feed at the far edge 
of the field, as the farmer is no friend of the crow. 
He is also a destroyer of the prairie chicken which eats eighty 
per cent of butter print or ragweed in this state. The farmer 
will leave a rod or so in the hay field where there is a prairie 
chicken’s nest; but the crow will soon spy the nest and destroy 
the eggs of the young ones. 
The crow destroys the quail’s nest too. He will fiy up and 
down till he finds the nest, runs the parents from the nest and 
destroys the eggs of the young ones. The quail feeds on mo’rn- 
ing glory seeds, potato bugs and foxtail. 
