A 
Id 
mmm 
MO 
m 
m 
■ 
. \ 
" ■ ■ .v ■ iyJ-/ §9 
aJd 
A View of the Crow. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
What has become of our song birds, and why 
have our game birds almost wholly disappeared? 
I am a constant reader of Forest and Stream 
and some of the explanations to the above ques¬ 
tions are amusing but are not to the point, and 
would indicate to me that the writers are not 
now and have not been observing. 
When I came to Rochelle, Ill., in 1865, it was 
an isolated case to see a crow. Game birds were 
plentiful and while hunters killed more then 
than now, yet each year there was about the 
same amount of game. The present depletion is 
laid to many causes and I have noticed that the 
chief cause is entirely overlooked. We are now 
required to pay a license to go afield with a 
gun and the prairie chicken has been protected 
from any shooting for the past four or five 
years. I am told on good authority that these 
chickens are fewer to-day than when the law 
protecting them went into effect. 
All this time the crow has become more nu¬ 
merous and there are now so many of them 
that they can place a sentinel on every corner of 
every acre in Ogle or Winnebago counties. Let 
anything move and they will immediately inves¬ 
tigate. If it is anything that can be used for 
food it is killed and devoured Years ago the 
farmer would pull his dead animals out into the 
woods or onto any waste land and the crows 
would eat them up. To-day it is different; the 
farmer can get something for all the animals 
that may die on his place and has only to call 
up the numerous rendering works, any one of 
which will be glad to call for the critter and pay 
him something for it. The crow has been cheated 
out of his food and has learned other ways to 
keep from starving. He now hangs around barns 
and sheds, even watching the straw stacks for 
setting hens. He is so very cute in his depreda¬ 
tions that unless you are out of sight and can 
watch him unobserved, you will not know that 
he is the thief. Even a shadow of danger and 
he is off and will wait patiently until such time 
as he can save his skin. He will sit on some far 
off tree and watch patiently until a setting hen 
leaves her nest and then he is destroying and 
carrying the eggs away with such rapidity that 
only a few minutes are required to break up that 
sitting. He is the worst enemy the farmer has, 
for he not only will steal the eggs but will carry 
off the young chickens and turkeys from the very 
door-yard. Any observing farmer will verify 
this statement. Hog cholera can be traced to 
the crow, and Mr. A. J. Lovejoy, whom every¬ 
body, knows as the breeder of fancy hogs, says 
that he dreads the crow more than words can 
tell. He knows whereof he speaks. 
I can tell of an instance showing the cuteness 
of the crow. A farmer plowing in the late 
spring, discovered a prairie chicken sitting, so 
he left a strip of unplowed ground with the nest 
upon it. He was at the other side of the field a 
little later the same day when he noticed a crow 
striking at the hen on the nest. The hen would 
rise from the nest as she would strike back and 
the crow, finding he was making no headway, 
flew off. The farmer passed by in the meantime 
and noted that the hen was on the nest and ap¬ 
parently unhurt. When on the other side of the 
strip he saw the crow coming and with him a 
second crow. They had evidently figured it out 
and immediately put their plan into action. One 
would strike at the hen from the front and as 
she would rise from the nest to strike back, the 
other would reach under her and take out an 
egg. The farmer saw what was going on and 
tried to drive them off; they would go away for 
only a few minutes and then return again, so he 
erected a blind near the hen, shot the pair and 
thereby saved what was left of the sitting for a 
few days; but eventually another crow cleaned 
it up and got away before it could be killed. 
As the years roll round the crow is growing 
more and more bold, and now he is attacking and 
killing domestic hens if they venture too far 
from the buildings. They have bqpn known to 
drive them, first this way, then that until com¬ 
pletely exhausted, then quickly finish what little 
life remained. 
A farmer going through the timber was at¬ 
tracted by the crows scolding and flying at some 
object on the ground. Upon investigation he 
found it to be a ruffed grouse, and the crows 
had him almost completely picked clean on the 
back. He had hid the best he could but had 
been discovered and pounced upon and would 
have been killed had it not been for the farmer 
happening that way when he did. 
Where is the game going ? I could go on and 
recite many personal experiences to show where. 
The crow will come into the very dooryard and 
take our domestic fowls; why would he not take 
all he can find that is not near the house before 
coming so close as to run the chance of being 
killed himself? 
Where are the song birds going? Get up early 
for a few mornings during the nesting season 
and you will have the question answered. The 
crow will come into the very city to rob any nest 
he may have spotted. At this time of the year 
he hunts the nests of the song birds constantly 
and will come to within a few feet of a building 
to get either the eggs or the young. He is an 
early riser and is out and doing before daylight. 
In my yard a year or two ago I had a robin that 
had built a nest in an apple tree near the barn. 
As I drove out of the place one day I saw a 
crow fly overhead, suddenly wheel and circle 
over that tree. I said to my wife then that that 
nest would be robbed before we returned, and 
sure enough it was, of a part of the young birds 
that were in it. He came back the next morning 
early to clean up the two that were left, but I 
was there, too, and I had my gun with me. If 
he is doing these things in your very dooryard, 
what is he doing in the woods at a distance? 
It is said that the reason we do not have the 
song and game birds we once had is because we 
do not have the cover for them. I am one of the 
oldest residents of this locality and wish to say 
that there is just as much cover now as there 
was years ago. There was a time when there 
were many partridges in Jefferson Grove, Ogle 
county, but they are not there to-day and have 
not been for a number of years. I had a talk 
with the man on the place and he says the crows 
have possession now, that they nest there and 
hunt their food for miles around. 
I had a friend visiting me and as he was some¬ 
thing of a shot, he suggested we go for a hunt. 
I told him that the only thing we could hunt 
would be the crow, and suggested that we go to 
their roost where they come in in thousands from 
every point of the compass. He .was from Iowa, 
not Missouri, but he did not believe any such 
story. We went out about dusk to the roost, had 
a good shoot and killed many crows. My friend 
declared on the way home that he had seen sev¬ 
eral million crows; that he wished to beg my 
pardon for doubting when I said there would 
be several thousand. These crows had been out 
over the country for twelve to fifteen miles in 
every direction during the day, had gathered in 
anything eatable, even if they had to kill it first, 
but when the shades of evening commenced to 
lengthen they commenced their flight to the 
roost. The gun does not make any impression 
upon them now, they are in such vast numbers, 
and unless some systematic method of poisoning 
is resorted to they will continue to increase. 
This State has a new law placing a bounty on 
the crow, and it was thought that ten cents was 
too much to pay, as many men would make it 
their business. I have not heard of any going 
into the business, neither have I heard of any 
one making any amount of money from the 
bounty. State Game Commissioner Wheeler says 
he will defeat the bill at the first opportunity, 
for it will exhaust the game protection fund 
and will not accomplish anything. He is appoint¬ 
ing deputy wardens to see to it that the game of 
the State is not hunted illegally, but he does not 
believe in spending any money to decrease the 
number of crows. What the farmers and sports¬ 
men of this state must have is a game commis¬ 
sioner who is friendly to their interests. He is 
very industriously planting quail all over the 
State now and is teaching the farmer that Bob- 
white is his best friend ; this is true, but I have 
known of several instances where the crows 
seem to be very thankful for the new food. I 
will not mention anything about rats getting 
some of the quail while they were being kept for 
planting. We must get rid of the crow before 
Bobwhite or any other bird can thrive. 
I read that the crow destroys the white 
grub and should be protected for this. The com¬ 
mon robin and the blackbird are the chief prey 
of the crow, and yet each robin or blackbird will 
destroy more grubs in a single hour than a crow 
will destroy in his lifetime. The crow was never 
known to tear up the sod and get the grub; how 
is it the robin or the blackbird gets them? Watch 
them some time and you will see them tear the 
sod from the spot and take the grub from an 
inch or two beneath. 
Be observing and learn a few things and you 
will then know I am right. G. W. Baldwin. 
