AN EPIDEMIC OF ROUP IN THE CANANDAIGUA 
CROW ROOST. 
BY ELON HOWARD EATON. 
Plate II. 
About the middle of December, 1901, a malady broke out 
among the Crows ( Corvus americanus) of Ontario County, New 
York, which, ere spring, had decimated the ranks of the local 
‘ roost.’ As soon as winter had fairly begun, reports commenced 
to come in of Crows which had been “blinded by freezing of their 
eyes,” as the farmers expressed it. 
Upon careful examination it was found that the roup had in- 
vaded the Ontario flock, and birds were dying daily from its effects. 
In one field about twenty dead and dying birds were picked up 
in one day. Nearly every grove or large field within a distance 
of ten miles from the roosting-grounds displayed one or more 
dead Crows. Nearly every wandering crow’s track in the snow, 
after circling round and round in an apparently aimless manner, 
would lead one to a black carcass lying under a tree or against a 
fence. Usually they sank down with their bills in the snow and 
their wings very slightly extended, but sometimes they died in a 
sitting posture with the feathers of the head ruffled up to their 
fullest extent. Often the birds died in trees, clutching the 
branches to the last and then falling headlong into the snow or 
landing on their backs with the wing tips pointing upwards. 
All the sick birds were suffering from an acute inflammation of 
\ 
was badly swollen, and tne surrounding sk.ui whs 
feathers. 
