The Crow as a Menace to Poultry Raising. 
315 
135 ducklings; later in the season there remained of these but 
fourteen. In a later lot he had 70 ducklings, and saved only thirteen 
of them. The loss of nearly 87 per cent he attributes almost wholly 
to crows. Mr. Church thought the crows carried the ducklings 
away in their claws, but in this he was probably mistaken. Mr. 
Church also found a scarecrow ineffectual in keeping the crows 
away. 
The question of whether the crow is on the whole beneficial to 
agricultural interests, or whether he does more harm than good, is 
one that will probably have to receive a different answer in ac¬ 
cordance with different conditions. That he does a great deal of 
good at times by the destruction of noxious insects cannot be 
denied, though it would probably be difficult to convince the average 
farmer that he is anything but a thief and a rascal. The problem 
is in reality an extremely complex one, depending upon a great 
many variable factors, especially the absolute and relative abund¬ 
ance of various kinds of food. When other food is scarce the crow 
turns to poultry, but when certain insects, (such, for example, as 
the beetles commonly known as “June bugs”) are abundant, the 
crow feeds largely upon them. Forbush, in the work mentioned 
above, devotes several pages (pp. 8-11) to a discussion of the pos¬ 
sible inter-relations of the crow and certain other birds, on the one 
hand to injurious insects, and on the other to insects and birds which 
are useful to agriculture. But whatever may be the crow’s good 
points in particular cases, it is not likely that the poultry man who 
is suffering serious losses by his depredations will be inclined to look 
upon him with favor. For this reason it is probably well that the 
State does not offer the crow protection; but that it is wise to give 
a bounty on all crows killed is not so certain. The matter is one 
which would probably be more or less locally self-adjusting without 
the bounty, for in those localities where crows are proving harmful this 
should in itself act as an incentive for lessening their numbers, while 
if they are doing no harm or are perhaps of benefit in other places, a 
bounty will work against its own ultimate ends, namely, the interests 
