Living, as I do, on a small farm, engaged in 
the production of fruit, poultry and honey in 
small quantities, I have ample opportunity for 
indulging in my special hobby—the study of wild 
birds and animals in their practical relation to 
agriculture. 
Our farm contains less than twenty acres with 
a small portion of native woodland. We keep 
neither cat nor dog and use every means to 
attract the furred and feathered neighbors, in 
order to observe them as nearly as possible 
under normal conditions. Our hens are housed 
in small buildings easily moved from place to 
place, and the entrances are left open at all times 
except in extremely cold or stormy weather. Our 
fruit is unprotected from the birds and the squir¬ 
rels gather the nuts from dooryard trees before 
our very eyes. That some popular prejudices 
against certain species are unwarranted we have 
proven to our entire satisfaction. That there 
are entirely too many cats and dogs supported 
by the ordinary community is equally apparent. 
The limits of this article will confine us to the 
consideration of two predaceous birds and the . 
same number of animals that we have noticed in 
particular. 
The crow is perhaps recognized by a greater 
number of persons than any other bird, unless 
it be the robin, and everywhere the crow is 
looked upon with suspicion if not with open hos¬ 
tility. That at times he is a good deal of a 
nuisance no one will question; that his services 
overbalance his mischief and leave a margin on 
the credit side of his account becomes apparent 
only to those who study his habits carefully, 
for he hides his light under a bushel and his 
good deeds are not shouted from the housetop. 
The crow of the broad prairies.of the Mississippi 
valley must be considered in a somewhat differ¬ 
ent light from the crow of the small cleared 
farms of the wooded regions. In the prairie 
regions his chief offenses are egg eating and 
chicken stealing. In the wooded regions his 
habit of pulling up sprouting corn has in many 
instances caused a bounty to be placed on his 
head. 
I have been especially interested in the crow 
and have observed them both in prairie and 
wooded regions under favorable conditions. 
There is no more intelligent bird, and I believe 
that they have a rather elaborate bird language 
by means of which they communicate with each 
other. Many months of practice on my part 
were needed before I acquired sufficient fluency 
in imitating the crow’s notes to deceive the birds 
themselves, and even yet I fail to do so on many 
occasions. One who wishes to study the lan¬ 
guage of lower animals need not journey to 
Africa to study monkeys. It does not require 
close observation of the crow to note the fact 
that very different notes-are used under different 
circumstances. 
The thing that has particularly impressed itself 
upon me is the striking individual peculiarities 
in food habits. To cite one instance: Our Mis¬ 
souri fruit farm, situated in the Ozark region, 
was surrounded by forest, and crows were very 
abundant. They were not shy, but came about 
the house and lots in large flocks. One spring 
an old fellow began catching the young chickens, 
not only ours, but our neighbor’s as well. After 
a time a neighbor boy killed him as he was 
making off with a chick. After that, although 
the flock of crows still came about the place as 
freely and fearlessly as before, we lost no more 
GREEN HERON. 
From a photograph by William C. Herman. 
young chickens by them. This proved very 
clearly that not all the crows were addicted to 
the habit of catching young chickens. At an¬ 
other time we were troubled by having our tur¬ 
key eggs eaten by the birds. As the eggs were 
from a strain of pure bred fowls and were sell¬ 
ing readily at about twenty-five cents each, it is 
easy to see that it was a source of considerable 
loss. Although I often had opportunity to ob¬ 
serve the crows at the turkey’s nest, never, so 
far as I could tell, did more than one crow go 
near the nest. Several others were near by and 
observed the nest being rifled of its contents. It 
is quite apparent that egg eating is much more 
common among crows than the catching of the 
young fowls, although I am satisfied that egg 
eating is by no means universally practiced 
among them. 
It has been the custom to ascribe to a species 
any habits that have been observed in individ¬ 
uals. My observations have been sufficient to 
convince me that individuals among wild creat¬ 
ures have very strongly marked traits of indi¬ 
vidual character, especially as to their food 
habits, and that certain traits generally ascribed 
to certain species are by no means universal, or 
in some cases even general. This I believe to 
be the fact in regard to chicken killing among 
crows. 
That the food habits of the crow are in the 
main beneficial will not be doubted by anyone 
who has given careful study to the matter. The 
white grub, so destructive to garden crops and 
grasses, is a staple article of diet with him, and 
anyone who has ever plowed a field is familiar 
with the fact that if undisturbed the crow will 
follow the plow for hours in search of them. 
He is also very fond of field mice or voles and 
is worthy of protection for his services in keep¬ 
ing them in check did he render no other, as is 
evidenced by the following note from a recent 
publication of the United States Department, of 
Agriculture, “An Economic Study of the Field 
Mice” : 
“It is of interest to note that complaints of 
recent depredations of field mice are especially 
numerous from sections of the United States 
where for several years past bounties have been 
paid for killing crows.” 
The screech owl is quite generally persecuted 
because he is an owl; at least, I can think of no 
other reason. Not long since a neighbor of mine 
was just taking aim at a screech owl that was 
sitting on a post near his barn at nightfall. In 
the nick of time the owl left the post, but re¬ 
turned to it a moment later wjth a rat that he 
had caught in the meantime. It is to be hoped 
that the object lesson was sufficiently convincing 
to prevent a tragedy in future. If undisturbed, 
screech owls are friendly little fellows and will 
readily take up their abode near a dwelling. The 
past winter one lived in a bird house that I had 
erected on a pole near the barn. At first he was 
shy, but gradually he came to know that my feel¬ 
ings toward him- were friendly. After a time 
he would sit in the opening of his retreat and 
watch me as I worked about the chores. Friends 
curious for a sight of him, however,, were al¬ 
ways denied an interview. Before his coming 
the barn was alive with mice and there had been 
some trouble with rats also in the grain box. It 
was not long before a change was noticed. When 
I was late about the chores, sometimes the owl 
would be in the hay mow. It was not long until 
the mice were effectively cleaned out of the barn, 
nor was there a sign of a rat about the building. 
The ground about the owl house was well strewn 
with the balls of fur and bones that are always 
disgorged by these birds and which furnish a 
clear index to their food. Although I examined 
