are not man-eaters and all crows are 
not guilty of disastrous raiding. 
HEN-<a bird is carnivorous and in- 
sectivorous, the variety and 
amount of food eaten forms a ponder- 
ous list running from weed seed to ripe 
fruit, from ants up to ruffed grouse 
and. rabbits and down the scale again 
to carrion. The omnivorous bird be- 
comes an economic problem. He is ac- 
ceptable and yet objectionable, and a 
part of his redeeming features may out- 
weigh the most destructive qualities in 
value to man and his works. 
The crow is a splendid example. His 
eating of enormous amounts of insects 
is a white light in a world of darkness, 
an argument favorable to the bird no 
one can rebel nor resist. The menu for 
the year makes a notable and formid- 
able variety, but one fifth of it is of in- 
sect material and the greater portion 
is of the injurious rather than of the 
beneficial insects. Spring” is a gala 
time, a season of feasts and gluttony, 
when the life cycles of the farmland in- 
sect pests are at ebb tide. Young and 
old birds seek the meadows, the open 
grassy hills, the furrows of freshly- 
plowed fields, and a real service is 
rendered the farmer. In crow eyes a 
bug is a bug, be it beetle, grasshopper, 
caterpillar, worm, spider or just or- 
dinary bug. They go down a cavernous 
maw. The young crows are larger 
eaters than the old birds, and so the 
amount of pests eaten must represent 
unestimable quantities. From April to 
November the crows work for the 
farmer when insects abound, but even 
a crow has his frailties and conse- 
quently varies his diet from time to 
time and thus loses all the gratitude 
earned. 
As summer swings up over the au- 
stral hills and spreads over the land- 
scape, the grasshopper season begins 
and the crow holds high jinks with 
these wary wild insects. It makes no 
difference what the species, from the 
little green fiddler to the toughest and 
mightiest violist of the locusts. This 
means something to the farmer. Again 
there are the caterpillars. It takes a 
strong, stomach to stand these hairy 
things, yet crows gorge themselves until 
they have difficulty in leaving the 
ground. Worms of all kinds, fierce- 
looking spiders, evil-smelling and awful- 
appearing bugs, anything in the in- 
sect family that swims, flys, jumps, 
crawls or walks is food for the un- 
biased bird. All he asks iss let him 
alone. 
F he errs, it is a case of scarcity, not 
one of wilful and deliberate mean- 
ness. The country dweller should not 
overlook this fact. A bird who de- 
202 
“with those of the hawk and owl. 
pends upon insects and carrion for a 
little over one-quarter of his year’s sus- 
tenance is entitled to some considera- 
tion. 
It is always best to serve up some- 
thing’s good points before bringing out 
the bad characteristics, and the wily 
crow is no exception to the rule. There 
is honor even among thieves. One who 
has.a shady reputation may own good 
points. But, when a crow is on a ram- 
page he is all bad like a gun-man run- 
ning amuck. The predacious activities 
of the crow are not to be compared 
His 
plundering forays are isolated affairs, 
more often depending on the scarcity of 
insects and vegetable foods, and occa- 
sionally the result of pure meanness. 
Sometimes I wonder if it be not just 
for the spirit of rough and buoyant ex- 
citement. Subtle is the crowish soul. 
In numbers there is trouble. An 
over-supply of certain species of wild 
life means a forced variation of forage, 
a compulsory change of habits. Scarc- 
ity compels a biologic idiosyncrasy. 
The generosity of nature in many a mile 
of landscape is ill-fitted to accommodate 
over-population. Natural history is 
plentifully supplied with instances of 
this truth—the lemmings of the tund- 
ras, the bobolinks in the rice fields of 
south Carolina, the ground squirrels of 
the West, the jack rabbits of the semi- 
arid lands, the locust plagues of many 
parts of the worlds, the insects of the 
farmlands. Today the crow is an ex- 
ample of this. He has multiplied until 
his numbers have become immense, sig- 
nificant, a bird phenomena. Numbers 
spell danger. 
HERE are many black scavengers 
coasting the outlands. They are 
forced to an easy living. This plus a 
characteristic inborn and traditional, 
means the crow does not have to be 
pushed very far before he accepts a can- 
nibal-like propensity and indulges in a 
life of crime. In the nesting season of 
insectivorous and seed-eating birds he is 
a menace, a scourge, a plague. He 
ranks among birds as Attila among 
men. He is a phantastic figure of the 
Pit rather than of earth, the beauty 
of landscape, the race of men. 
Economically the farmlands suffer, 
and so do the game covers, the game 
farms, the fish ponds, the roads and 
wood paths, the fields and woods. Agri- 
cultural improvements, the slashing of 
woodlands in reckless cutting, the use- 
less draining of many a useless swamp 
for the enriching of a few promoters, 
the increased numbers of sportsmen 
roaming the dwindling shelters of wild 
life, have worked a change in the habits 
and characteristics’ of wild life—more 
importantly the game and song birds. 
They have been forced to occupy less 
area, and coupled with the depletion in 
numbers the great flocks of sable 
raiders have no difficulty in seeking out 
the nerve centers of the useful bird 
life and practically paralyzing many a 
wonderful bit of landscape. Briefly, 
forcibly, even profanely, there are too 
many crows. . 
tise amount of damage done to bird 
life is small and few in number, 
yet this puny percentage in the menu 
of a crow bulks large in a biological 
and agricultural importance. It is a 
noxious trait, and should not be con- 
doned. As crows increase so will they 
work deeper and more destructive in- 
roads among useful life. It is a mat- 
ter of survival with them. When a 
member of the great wild life family 
reaches such a point, then man should 
regulate. These misdeeds can be put in 
order. The crow must be outlawed an 
warred against until his numbers have 
dwindled to a few and widely — 
small flocks placed strategically an 
safely in various parts of the landscape, 
When he has become a scarce individ- 
ual, shy, subtle as the coyote, canny as 
the fox, secretive as a white-tailed deer, 
imagine the thrill and adventure of 
trying to stalk such a bird. The kill 
ing of such a phantom would be epic 
and dramatic. It would be a 
carried to apotheosis. 
Deplorable as are the pillaging of 
the nests and the killing of the wild 
birds, these are the result of spasmodie 
attacks rather than of a_ systematic 
series of events. Birds are not the 
happy singing family the poets would 
have us believe, and there is always 
present a friction which breaks the 
truce of the wild and consequently ise 
sues trivial warfare, often harmless, oc- 
casionally serious, but never lasting. 
This does not include the true predatomll 
birds as it is impossible to change the 
leopard’s spots. At the same time the 
crow is guilty in his depredations of 
the eggs and young of the highly in- 
sectivorous birds, and his numbers 
makes these attacks more frequealy 
A LONE crow is a coward, a pole 
troon, and only in flocks of many in- 
dividuals do they show any visible bray- 
ery. The weakest of birds will put a 
lone crow to flight, to panic-stricken ter- 
ror. Against the sheer weight of num- 
bers and sham courage the small bird 
has to give up the ghost, and this fea- 
ture places a huge black mark against 
the crow’s name which can be erased 
only by a high percentage of injurious 
insect food. 
Coming closer to the farmer and his 
handiwork, the bird often merits the 
(Continued on page 240) } 
