CROWS 
309 
per cent; fruit, mostly wild, 17-70 per cent; and weed seed and rubbish, 
3-06 per cent. In the east, the Crow is condemned mostly as a grain eater; 
in the west, complaints of this nature are few and in any event Indian 
corn is not an important crop there. It is notable that much of the “other 
grain" is taken in early spring months when it is obviously waste. On 
the other hand, from May until the end of August, the Crow makes a strik- 
ing record as an insect consumer. During these months, insects average 36 
per cent of its food, of which, during August and September, grasshoppers 
constitute 19 per cent, and in May, May beetles over 10 per cent of the 
total. Nineteen per cent of the food of so large and common a species as 
the crow is an important economic item. When it is noted that these figures 
are for the average of North America and mostly where grasshoppers are 
but incidental and not unduly numerous, it is evident that the benefit that 
may be derived from the species is well worth considering. Undoubtedly, 
the Crow's worst enemies will admit that, where grasshoppers occur in 
pestilential numbers, the Crow subsists upon them almost entirely. The 
writer has seen the ground under Crow stations covered with the ejected 
pellets composed entirely of the horny, undigestible parts of grasshoppers. 
No less convincing an observer than Mr. Norman Criddle of Aweme, 
Manitoba, studying the grasshopper pest for the Entomological Branch of 
the Dominion Government, cites cases where land protected by numerous 
Crows escaped serious damage, but adjoining localities, where they had been 
lately systematically shot, were devastated by grasshoppers. Based on 
stomach examinations, usually the most reliable evidence on the subject, 
and from a purely agricultural standpoint, it seems that a very good case 
can be made for the Crow in the Canadian west. It does not seriously 
affect grain and does good duty in controlling some of the worst insect 
pests the farmer has to contend with. But there is another side to the 
story, and one that stomach examination does not usually show. 
As an egg eater and a young bird destroyer, the Crow is probably the 
very worst enemy of some of our largest and most useful wild birds. 
Throughout the spring and early summer, before grasshoppers are out in 
number, the Crow in the west makes its worst showing, and one that in the 
eyes of many cancels all the good if may do at other times. In the itemized 
tables given by Mr. Kalmbach, animal matter other than insects and 
carrion constituted over 10 per cent of its food for May, June, and July. 
In this, however, no account can be taken of the enormous number of eggs 
consumed during this time, as they seldom leave any record in the crop or 
stomach for subsequent recognition. Field observations show that Crows 
destroy an astonishingly large proportion of the eggs of water-fowl and 
upland game. Probably in many cases of the first layings of these birds 
scarcely one out of four is brought to hatching. Later broods, when the 
cover is better grown, fare better, but even they suffer severely and in any 
event several weeks are lost of the precious summer in which to mature and 
harden the young generation in preparation for the hardships of migration 
and winter. It is nothing uncommon to see newly hatched broods of ducks 
as late as the end of August, the results of several interruptions to breeding. 
Of course, all the nest destruction cannot be blamed on Crows. Coyotes, 
dogs, cats, the trampling cattle, and other factors are also to a greater or 
less degree responsible. But taking such evidence as the culprit leaves 
behind, it is only too evident that the Crow is the cause of the larger propor- 
tion of loss. A dozen nests may be found occupied one day and destroyed 
