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How About the Crow? 
By RAYMOND SCHRENKEISEN 
S hakespeare said, in “Much 
Ado About Nothing,” “I had 
rather hear my dog bark at a 
crow than a man swear he loves me.” 
Perhaps not everyone feels this strong¬ 
ly in the matter, but there are many 
who would rather see a man shoot a 
crow than sit around waiting for the 
law to tell him he can go out and shoot 
pheasants, ducks, upland plover and 
sandpipers. It kills great numbers of 
the young of these birds as well as 
destroying many of the eggs, and it 
has even been known to kill young rab¬ 
bits and destroy the eggs of the tur¬ 
key. For bold sagacity it has no equal, 
and the economic damage perpetrated 
by this ornithological vandal as a home- 
a partridge or a woodcocl. And there wrecker of and^n 
aie good and sufficient reasons why sectivorous birds is little short of stag- 
The crow gering. There is no question, there 
many people feel this way 
unquestionably is to be classed‘amo“ni A"A, AT' "° qUeStion ' there ’ 
the foremost enemies of be l„T,o? 5 0re -.«“‘ the «•* is w ° rt hy of being 
the foremost enemies of the country’s 
game conservation interests. This may 
sound like a broad statement, but there 
is ample proof to back it. 
It has often been argued that the 
crow is a valuable adjunct to the 
farmer in that it destroys large num¬ 
bers of the grubs and insects that 
are injurious to 
crops. This is 
entirely true, but 
when the fact is 
taken into con¬ 
sideration that 
every crow kills 
many birds and 
destroys the eggs 
of birds that eat 
just as many and 
perhaps more of these injurious pests, 
the crow’s importance to our agricul¬ 
tural interests rather pales and loses 
its significance. Because of this fact 
alone, the crow is not worthy of pro¬ 
tection. 
Further than this and from the 
standpoint of the sportsman, the crow 
is the archenemy of some of our no¬ 
blest game birds, such as grouse, quail, 
> Page 627 
listed among the foremost members of 
the Hall of Fame of Vermin, and it 
is every sports¬ 
man’s duty to 
destroy all the 
vermin he can. 
Darwin is au¬ 
thority for the 
the abundance of game birds in 
a GIVEN LOCALITY IS CHIEFLY DE¬ 
PENDENT UPON THE DESTRUCTION 
OF VERMIN. 
— DARWIN. 
MIIIIIIIIIIIIIM..,,11,11, 
statement that 
the abundance 
of game birds 
in a given local¬ 
ity is chiefly 
dependent 
upon the de- 
SSSSt 
struction of vermin, and further, that 
if not one head of game were shot 
within the next twenty years and no 
vermin destroyed during the same pe¬ 
riod, there would in all probability be 
less game than there is today, despite 
the large army of shooters that go into 
the field every year. This statement 
is worthy of the attention of all 
thinking sportsmen, both because of 
the ominous significance attached there¬ 
to as well as the unquestionable author¬ 
ity of its source. 
QN the other hand, the crow is 
not to be despised as suitable 
quarry for the gunner, aside from 
the fact that it is inimical to the 
fuither increase of more legitimate 
game birds. It was Henry Ward 
Beecher who said that if men were 
feathered out and supplied with a 
pair of wings, very few of them 
would be clever enough to make 
good crows. Added to this is the 
fact that crows are being shot at 
more and more each year, thereby 
making them wary and difficult to 
approach, which in turn makes the 
sport of crow shooting more at¬ 
tractive and interesting. The 
only reason so many crows are 
shot is because 
there are so 
many; but it is 
not everyone 
that is good 
enough at han¬ 
dling a gun to 
account for very 
' many. The sil- 
( Cont. on 
page 637 ). 
e -7 s 
