18 
ORNITHOLOGIST 
[Yol. 13-No. 2 
roost and on the sand where they gather. These 
pellets show that very few mice enter the bill 
of fare of the Crow. But they also prove that 
the Crow has no stomach for grain. Large 
pieces of maize, and entire kernels of oats and 
wheat are thrown out indigested, and even the 
acorn, which must often appease their hun- 
ger, is found intact in the pellets. 
The Crow, eats anything and everything, 
when pressed by hunger, but it prefers, animal 
matter, and it makes no difference whether it is 
fresh or old. It turns around the old droppings 
of the cattle to see if there is anything eatable 
underneath. It devours a rotten apple for a 
change of diet, and eats the chicken without 
asking how long it has been dead or with what 
disease it died. 
When they are so lucky as to find the dead 
body of a horse, they return to it every day 
until the bones are perfectly clean. I have 
even heard of the remarkable sight, when the 
cadaver of a man was seen driving down on an 
ice field, surrounded and torn to pieces by hords 
of crows. 
The Crow likes our climate, because we have 
as a rule very little snow. The snow which 
precedes our cold spells comes with a high 
wind, and is therefore drifted. Snow which 
falls heavily later in the season does not stay 
long. After afresh snowfall, or during a sud- 
den cold snap, the Crow’s resource is the river. 
For miles and miles along its shores crows 
abound, watching at the water’s edge, visiting 
the sandbars and hovering over the river, fish- 
ing from its surface choice morsels with which 
they make hastily for a safe place to eat in 
peace. 
The most animated picture is to be had in 
times when the river is full of floating ice. At 
such times it is fairly alive with crows all day. 
Sitting on the edge of floating ice fields, they 
drift down for miles, watching the agitated 
waves until they bring to light the eagerly 
sought for dainty in the shape of a rosy lung or 
similar sueculency. When such an article has 
been found, it is accompanied for many miles 
by troops of hungry crows, and the crowning 
event takes place when the Bald Eagle joins the 
revelers and gets the lion’s share. 
In former years, Herring gulls were not un_ 
common at such feasts, but of late they seem to 
get quite scarce around here. 
In very hard winters, when the river remains 
solidly frozen for some time, the crows are very 
much less numerous, but as soon as the snow 
begins to go they return, and when the ice 
breaks up they are back in full force. 
From the middle of September when they 
first appear at the roost, until the middle of 
October, the increase is slow. The last decade of 
October and the first of November is the time 
when the bulk of crows arrive at the roost. 
Cool, still days, with gloomy skies and misty 
air, bring them from the North in loose, strag- 
gling flights, from different directions, but fall- 
ing into line north of the city, they pass around 
its western bounds near Shaw’s garden, and 
thence in a straight line towards the foot of the 
Island where they arrive in a regular stream, 
which pours in some days froml or 2 p. m., un- 
til dark. 
On arriving above the river the Crow ceases 
beating the air, and instead of flapping heavily 
along as usual, it spreads its wings and floats 
down majestically towards the Island where it 
first goes for water and then for a perch in the 
trees. This perch is often changed before the 
final selection is made. Cottonwoods and wil- 
lows twenty to thirty feet high are chosen, and 
a dozen or more find a place in a single tree. 
When the November sun has set, the trees on 
the lower part of the Island are black with 
crows, and the noise they make and which they 
keep up until quite dark is heard for miles 
around. Before the sun is up in the morning 
the crows leave the roost, but the noise ma}^ be 
heard long before daybreak, and does not cease 
until they have left. In open weather in fall, 
hardly any Crow is seen at the roost all the fore- 
noon. The place looks deserted. The crows 
have gone, and the first rays of the sun find 
them scattered over hundreds of square miles. 
We may go out any direction within twenty 
miles of St. Louis, but we see crows winging 
their way to some distant feeding ground, scat- 
tering as they proceed, spreading over fields 
and woods, but enlivening the scenery where- 
ever they appear. 
They seem to do most of their feeding in the 
morning. In the early afternoon they begin to 
collect into flocks, and large congregations may 
he seen in many places, passing the time play- 
fully until ready to go home, when flock joins 
flock, trying to keep track if wind and weather 
permit. On clear still days, they fly at great 
heights. A gale throws them far out of their 
beaten path and they fly as low as possible, 
seeking shelter from the wind behind woods 
and buildings, and following as much as pos- 
sible the lowest depressions of the ground. 
They first appear at the roost soon after mid- 
day, but the majority arrive within an hour 
before sunset ; comparatively few come later. 
It is not seldom to see them carry food in 
Feb. 1888.] 
AND OOLOGIST. 
19 
their bill to the roost, and different kinds of nuts 
and acorns, pieces of meat and even bones may 
be found on the sandbank. 
As long as the weather remains mild the Crow 
sleeps in these places, but when the sharp 
North winds strip the trees of their leaves, 
the trees lose much of their attraction for the 
crows, and they begin to spend the nights on 
the sand which girdles the island. 
In November, comparatively few crows re- 
sort to the sand, but when in December a spell 
of zero sweeps over the island, most of them 
remain on the ground, covering the vast sand- 
bar at the foot of the island with innumerable 
black dots, and as many more again stay on the 
large ice field which stretches now along the 
shallow eastern shore like a continuation of the 
sandbar. 
Here they are on the bare ice from 4 p. m. 
till 7 a. m., fifteen long hours, with tempera- 
ture near zero, exposed to the fierce wind with- 
out any shelter at all. How they can stand it, 
is more than I know, and although I have found 
frozen crows and crows with stumped toes as 
reminiscences of former experiences, I still be- 
lieve, as a rule, they stand the rigors of our 
winter quite well. The first sunny mild day, 
and immediately after the coldest spells, the 
crow thinks of courting, and shows all signs of 
an amorous crow whose love is not by our tem- 
peratures refrigerated. 
This courting is done openly, in broad day- 
light, socially, gracefully. The crows gather 
on a sunny hillside or some similarly favorable 
place, talk to each other in the softest crow 
language, one by one, flies straight up into the 
air, soars fora moment, floats gracefully down, 
cheered by the rest, amidst which it alights to 
see others do what he did. 
As soon as the weather becomes mild and the 
ground free from snow and ice, the crows be- 
gin to disperse. This is generally not before 
February, and sometimes quite late in that 
month, but by the middle of March their ranks 
are thinned out very much, and few are left 
after the first of April. Generally, their depar- 
ture is not particularly noticed, it being a con- 
tinuation of their daily flight, failing to return 
to the roost in the evening. 
But sometimes I have seen two birds flying 
together in a northerly direction, even in the 
afternoon, and right against the incoming 
stream of crows. These I take for absconders, 
ready to dispense with sociability, the two be- 
ing enough company by themselves. With the 
beginning of the breeding season, the history of 
the common roost ends. We do not now fol- 
low them into the sylvan retreats where they 
raise a big family. Let us hope that all will re- 
turn to us in the fall, bringing with them- 
selves a great army of jolly young crows. In- 
teresting would it be to learn if other cities on 
the lower Missouri and Mississippi have similar 
roosts. Omaha, Kansas City, Cairo. Louis- 
ville, Memphis, are probably like favored. 
O.&Q. XIIX. Feb. 1888 p. //- /£ 
97 
