The Common Crow . 
5 
by his efforts to obtain a nice gosling for his next meal. At length, con¬ 
vinced of the fruitlessness of his efforts, he flew off to seek some more easily- 
procurable food. Several crows sometimes unite to plunder the goose of 
her young, and are then generally successful, because they are able to distract 
the attention of the parents and lure them farther from their young.” 
If we compare the insect food of the American with that of the Australian 
crow, we find a very high degree of similarity indeed. Prom personal 
examination of the contents of the stomachs of scores of Australian crows, I 
can, allowing for difference in the insect species of the two countries, corro¬ 
borate most of the sentences in the following generalisations of Mr. Schwartz 
regarding the food habits of the American crow, so far as insects are 
concerned :— 
“ 1. The insect food of crows is almost exclusively composed of terrestrial 
species, i.e., such as are found on the surface of the ground, or hide during 
the daytime at the base of plants or under the various objects lying on the 
surface ; or such as live in the dung of domestic animals, in decaying vege¬ 
table and animal matter, or underground. 
“ There is not the slightest indication that crows catch any insects while on 
the wing, and the almost complete absence of the numerous arboreal insects 
of all orders, i.e., such insects as are to be found on, or which live on the 
trunks, limbs, or leaves of trees and shrubs, indicates that the birds when 
sitting or resting on trees do not pick up insects. 
“ The almost constant presence of coprophagous insects in the stomachs 
indicates that crows preferably frequent dry pasture lands, dry meadows, or 
very open woods, where cattle or horses are grazing. In many instances the 
presence of certain species of Chlcenius , water beetles, or an occasional aquatic 
Hemipter or a Cryllotalpa or Corydalus, &c., shows that the birds frequent 
the margins of ponds or streams, while in a number of other instances the 
presence of the larva? of Lachnosterna, Elateridae, &c., proves that the crows 
have followed the plough of the farmer. Many of the terrestrial insects 
eaten by crows abound during the warmer season in cultivated fields, more 
especially in corn and clover fields, and have no doubt been picked up by the 
birds in such localities. 
“ 2. The insect food of the crow consists only of large or medium-sized 
insects ; small species are only rarely, if ever, picked up. The smallest 
insects found are certain species of Aphodius. Ants form a marked exception 
to this rule, as small, or very small, species are frequently found in many 
stomachs. 
“3. The crow appears to prefer insects with a hard covering to the moro 
soft-bodied ones. Thus the number of the hard imagos of Carabidae, Elate¬ 
ridae, Scarabaeidae, Curculionidae, and Acridiidae enormously exceeds that of 
the Coleopterous, Lepidopterous, and Dipterous larvae found in the stomachs, 
and no soft-bodied imagos (a few Diptera excepted) seem to be eaten. In 
many instances, however, this peculiarity may be explained by the fact that 
the larvae, as a rule, live in more hidden situations, and are more difficult to 
find than the imagos. But crows derive a great deal of their food from the 
insects living in dung-heaps and dead animals where Dipterous and other 
larvae abound ; still these are but rarely met with in the stomachs. A marked 
exception to this rule is the frequent occurrence of spiders, and more espe¬ 
cially species of the family Lycosidae, or ground spiders. 
“ 4. It would seem that crows have a predilection for insects possessing a 
pungent or otherwise strong taste or odour. This is exemplified by the pre¬ 
valence of Carabidae (among them the often-recurring genus Chlcenius , pos¬ 
sessing a peculiar odour), coprophilous or necrophagous Coleoptera (Siiphidae, 
