496 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
[On March 26, 1926, Ligon observed about 100 birds 3 miles south of Bernalillo, 
which as a rule represents about the southern limit of range on the Rio Grande. 
But in the same year he discovered 3 at Cottonwood Springs on Cuchillo Creek, 
10 miles west of the Elephant Butte Dam—100 miles out of their regular range. 
Mr. Leopold considers their distribution “very spotty/’ they having been noted near 
Glorieta on the Pecos, April 30, 1917, August, 1917, and August, 1918, occurring 
regularly near Lamy, but not found at Albuquerque. “They have, however, been 
found a few miles north of Albuquerque” (Ligon).]— W. W. Cooke. 
Nest. —In trees, bulky and deep, made of sticks, weed stalks, and other coarse 
materials, lined with bark, roots, grass, and sometimes wool or hair. Eggs: Usually 
3 to 5, green to olive-buff, irregularly and variously spotted and blotched with browns 
and grays. 
Food. —The insect food of the Crow includes grasshoppers, wireworms, cutworms, 
cattle grubs, white grubs (in some cases almost to extermination), and during 
insect outbreaks it renders good service. It is also an efficient scavenger. Its 
injury to sprouting corn may be prevented by coating the seed grain with coal tar. 
Losses of poultry and eggs may be averted by proper housing and the judicious use 
of wire netting. Where abundant, however, the Crow destroys numbers of beneficial 
wild birds and their eggs and sometimes also destroys nut and melon crops. 
General Habits. —To the student of the life histories of birds the 
Crow offers rich material, and his intelligence, humor, musical sense, 
courtship, song, and social instinct have been widely celebrated in 
bird literature. His social sense is shown most strikingly in the winter 
roosts where, in the east at least, the birds gather by the thousands 
at night, flying back in long black lines to their feeding grounds early 
in the morning. 
At Lake Burford, where Doctor Wetmore found several pairs 
nesting, they came down daily to the shore and “walked about in the 
open hunting for beetles or flew along low over the rushes searching 
for the nests of blackbirds. The male Yellow-heads and Red-wings 
flew up and attacked them savagely but the Crows paid little attention” 
(1920a, 402). 
Local injury to crops has at times made the Western Crow a serious 
problem. In the State of Washington, L. L. Gardner reports, a flock, 
estimated at thirty thousand, destroyed valuable watermelon and 
almond crops. “Efforts of the farmers, which included shooting, use 
of scarecrows, belling and stringing the trees, had proved unavailing.” 
Poisoning was finally resorted to and drove them from the region, 
although killing only one per cent of the flock (1926, pp. 460-61). 
Additional Literature.—Allen, F. H., Auk, XXXVI, 112-113, 1919 (music). 
—Barrows, W. B., and E. A. Schwarz, Bull. 6, Biol. Surv., U. S. Dept. Agr., 1895.— 
Bergtold, W. H., Auk, XXXVI, 198-205, 1919 (distribution in Colorado).— 
Burns, F. L., Wilson Bull. No. 5, 1-41, 1895 (monograph).— Kalmbacii, E. R., Bull. 
621, U. S. Dept. Agr., 1918 (food); Yearbook Sep. 659, U. S. Dept. Agr. for 1915 
(winter roosts); U. S. Dept. Agr. Farmers’ Bull. 1102, 1920.— Miller, O. T., 
Little Brothers of the Air, 236-243 (habits).— Townsend, C. W., Auk, XXXV, 
405-416, 1918 (roosts); Auk, XLIV, 550-551, 1927. 
