16 
Ash-Leaved, Maples. 
The ash-leaved maple is commonly called the 
box-elder throughout the Middle West, where it 
grows commonly as a native species. It is one 
of the most beautiful of the maples in winter on 
account of the rich colors of the branches. 
These are commonly of a glorious olive green, 
sometimes with a tinge of red. The broad 
buds are densely downy and generally greenish 
or brownish in color. In young trees the bark 
of the trunk is likely to be yellowish green, while 
on older ones it is dark grayish brown. 
The pendent clusters of greenish yellow flow- 
ers appear in early spring, generally during the 
first half of April. The pollen-bearing and 
seed-bearing blossoms are on separate trees. 
The former are in simple clusters of long- 
stemmed flowers; the latter are on stems along 
a central stalk. The leaves begin to develop 
as the blossoms appear, and soon clothe the 
tree with a compound foliage of a tender green 
color. Each leaf has from three to seven leaf- 
lets, and is of a very characteristic form. Dur- 
ing the early winter months the box-elders are 
often very attractive on account of the presence 
of the long pendent clusters of graceful key- 
fruits. There are often ten or a dozen fruits 
hanging from a single stalk, the distance from 
the base of the stalk to the tip of the terminal 
key-fruit being commonly nine or ten inches. 
Each pair of fruits is joined at nearly a right 
angle, each fruit being slender at the base and 
having a rather broad wing. 
These key-fruits often remain upon the tree 
through the greater part of the winter, being 
whipped off one at a time by strong winds that 
carry them far and wide and leave behind the 
stalks still attached to the twigs. 
The Crow in Winter. 
BY EDWARD A. SAMUELS. 
No oTHER bird possesses the characteristics 
which unite in the mental make-up, if such an 
expression can be used, as those of the common 
crow; for it has all the sagacity of some of the 
higher mammals, the mischievousness of the 
monkey, the crafty slyness of the fox, and the 
ferocity of the wolf. These and some other traits 
are needed by it in its struggle for existence, for 
in all animated nature it has not a single friend. 
During the three months of winter the crow 
generally has a very limited menu; in fact, its 
rations are so meager, if it is content to remain 
in the neighborhood in which it has passed the 
summer that they often approach the starvation 
point. 
In those months, when the face of the country 
is covered with snow, a large majority of the 
birds move from the home sections to localities 
where food is more abundant, and those that re- 
main. glean a scanty subsistence from seeds of 
wild plants, weeds, acorns, apples that have been 
left on trees in the orchard and frozen, and it 
occasionally captures a field mouse that strays 
from its nest in the stubble field or swamp, Dur- 
ing this period the expression, “poor as a crow,” 
is very appropriate to this bird. 
Those that remain in the home section often 
prove a great nuisance to the fur trapper by pil- 
fering the bait that he has placed at his traps, and 
sometimes pay with their lives for such thieving 
propensities. If a dead horse or other animal is 
accessible, the bird fairly revels in the abundant 
food thus provided, and makes frequent visits to 
the carcass until the bones are thoroughly picked. 
But, as I before stated, a large majority of the 
birds migrate to more southern latitudes, some- 
times covering considerable distances in a day’s 
flight, for it is of powerful wing and moves 
through the air very rapidly. I have often seen 
large scattered flocks of them high up in the air 
moving in a southerly direction; this was usually 
before the advent of a heavy snowstorm, the 
barometrical instincts of the bird causing it to 
seek a more genial clime. 
A considerable number of those who do not 
migrate often seek for food in the winter at the 
seashore, where the crabs and other crustaceans, 
minnows and small fish furnish an abundant sup- 
ply. It has been stated that the crow, when it 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[JAN. 6, 1906. 

finds a large, hard-shelled crab, flies with it to a 
considerable height and then drops it on a stone, 
where it is crushed, thus affording easy access to 
the delicious food within. The accuracy of this 
statement, however, I cannot vouch for. | 
That the crow is one of the most omnivorous 
of birds has been noted by many ornithologists, 
that it is in a measure of benefit to the farmer 
there is but little doubt, but through a great por- 
tion of the year it is injurious to a’ high degree. 
In my book on the “Birds of New England,” I 
devoted considerable space to the habits of the 
crow, and from it I will give a brief summary 
of the bird’s utility on the farm. 
In the winter months, as I have already stated, 
it does no injury to the farmer, and this is also 
true of the month of March. During the month 
of April there is no question about its usefulness, 
for it then subsists almost entirely upon injurious 
insects, larve, etc., and through the early part of 
May its diet is about the same, but during the 
latter portion of the month it is injurious in a 
very high degree, for it undoubtedly destroys the 
eggs and young of a great number of beneficial 
birds. I have seen a pair of crows in two visits 
to an orchard, within a half hour’s time devour 
the young birds in two robins’ nests. 
During the month of June, and the first half 
of July, it is also very injurious, for its young 
are possessed of voracious appetites, requiring an 
abundance of food to satisfy them, and this food 
consists largely of the eggs and young of bene- 
ficial birds, such as warblers, sparrows, thrushes, 
éte. 
Bradley says that a pair of sparrows will de- 
stroy 3,360 caterpillars for a week’s family sup- 
ply. For four weeks, at the lowest estimate, the 
young of our sparrows are fed on this diet; and 
the family that the crow destroys would, in that 
time, eat at least 13.400 noxious insects; and a 
pair of thrushes has been actually seen to carry 
over a hundred insects, principally caterpillars, 
cut worms, etc., to their young in an hour’s time. 
If we suppose that this family be fed for only six 
hours inthe day they would eat 600 per diem, at 
least while they remain in the nest, which being 
three weeks, the amount would be 12,600; and 
before they leave us in the fall, allowing only fifty 
each per day—a very small number—they would, 
in the aggregate, kill 20,000 more. 
We may readily see, therefore, that the birds 
destroyed by the black marauder would be much 
more beneficial to the farmer fhan the crow is the 
entire year. 
During the last half of July, and through Au- 
gust, and the first half of September, its diet con- 
sists of about half insects and mice, and the bal- 
ance cf berries and small fruits; and it is not 
injurious, otherwise than by pilfering garden 
fruits and grains. From the middle of September 
until November its food loses much of its fruit 
character, and consists of at least two-thirds of 
insects, mice and other noxious creatures, and 
November and December it is beneficial to about 
the same extent that it is in February and March. 
As I before observed, the young of the crow 
possess ever craving appetites, and to satisfy 
them the parent birds seek in every direction for 
edibles. In a great many places the water in pools, 
small ponds, ditches, etc., evaporates under the 
heat of the summer sun leaving great numbers of 
tadpoles, small frogs, etc., to die; and these are 
greedily snapped up by the crows and carried to 
their nestlings. Small snakes are also often cap- 
tured for food; in fact, nothing seems to come 
amiss in the way of edibles. 
Gentry says that the crow is a fish catcher, and 
as such is almost as skillful as its relative, the 
fish crow. He states that one of his correspon- 
dents has observed theee birds amuse themselves 
for hours at this occupation: ‘When a luckless 
gold fish would rise to the surface of the water 
it was quickly descried and instantly seized. 
Other fishes meet the same inevitable doom. In 
some instances the birds were bold enough to 
plunge beneath the watery surface in their en- 
deavors to secure the prey. But ordinarily they 
managed the capture so adroitly, the necessity for 
unduly wetting their plumage did not often oc- 
Cut. 
.In addition to the injury done to the farmers 
by the killing of beneficial birds and its depreda- 
tions in the newly planted cornfields, pea patches, 
etc., the crow is a notorious egg thief, and every 
nest that the poultry have stolen in the fields, or 
is otherwise accessible, if discovered by the black. 
rover is rifled of its contents; the eggs of the 
grouse and quail or partridge are also quickly ap- 
propriated when found. 
Baynes very truthfully observes that when a 
crow has once acquired “the habit of bird nesting 
he should be shot, if possible, as he can destroy 
more song birds than he is worth. He sometimes 
robs larger birds, too, and he has been known to 
steal all the,eggs of a turkey by thrusting his bill 
through them and flying away with them, one 
after another.” 
In addition to thé eggs of domestic poultry, the 
crow at every possible opportunity swoops down 
upon young chickens, which, with their mother 
hen, have wandered away from the barnyard. 
This fact is not generally known, but I have 
known of its occurrence on several occasions, and 
to my cost, a number of my young Brahmas and 
Plymouth Rocks having been caught and carried 
off by the sneaking robber. My experience is not 
entirely singular in this respect, for in Vol. IL, 
of American Naturalist, a correspondent states 
that he saw a crow pounce down into a barnyard 
after the manner of a hawk, on a brood of young 
chickens and carry one of them off. The act sur- 
prised him, although he knew that at that season 
(early summer) a great part of this bird’s food 
consisted of the eggs and young of small birds, 
he had never heard of its capturing its prey in 
this manner. 
Another correspondent in the same publication 
says that he also saw a crow dash down upon a 
brood of young chickens and carry one of them 
off, and in a second attempt a few days after- 
ward, the quasi bird of prey failed to secure its 
prize; but on a third attempt it succeeded in 
carrying off its prey. 
“The fowls in the early part of the season ap- 
peared to look for no harm from these birds, but 
later they came to understand the danger, and 
uniformly fled to the shelter of the buildings, with 
cries of alarm upon the approach of crows, the 
same way as Is their habit to do from hawks.” 
_ “Another correspondent in Vol. III. says that 
in his neighborhood (Lancaster county, Pa.) it 
1s not an uncommon occurrence in the spring of 
the year when the crows have had a winter’s fast 
and hens take their broods abroad. Indeed, we 
have known them to venture into barnyards and 
carry off young chickens. We know that the 
corvine appetite craves the eggs of other fowls, 
and this characteristic is only a further advance 
in that direction.” . 
The nest of the crow is a bulky affair; it is 
usually placed high in a tall tree, preferably a 
pine or other evergreen, and is constructed of 
sticks, twigs, etc., and lined with the soft outer 
bark of cedar, grapevine, etc., and one nest of this 
species 1s recorded as having been lined with 
hog’s bristles. The eggs, four or five in num- 
ber, are of a bluish-green and are spotted and 
blotched more or less thickly with different 
shades of brown and black; the nestlings are un- 
sightly little creatures, and when half-grown are 
seemingly nothing but bunches of black pin- 
feathers, to which are attached heads of dispro- 
portionately large size. ; 
These keep the parent birds busy from dawn 
until dark providing food for them, and when the 
old ones approach they are greeted with a series 
of discordant caws and cries which may some- 
times be heard at a distance of half a mile from — 
the nest. 
I suppose there are few country-bred lads who 
have not been attracted by these vociferations 
and climbed the tree in which the nest was built, 
sometimes to the height of fifty or sixty feet. I 
have done so repeatedly, and I have a vivid recol- 
lection of the greeting I received from the young 
birds when my head appeared above the edge 
of the nest; four or five scarlet-lined mouths 
opened in expectancy of food, and the yells 
emitted therefrom were almost ear-splitting. Like 
other boys, I have carried one or more of these 
fledglings home and cared for and reared them 
as pets, and as such they proved to be very inter- 
esting. 
One particularly interesting bird almost estab- 
