14 THE “A‘U.D'U B-ON®? (BUDD Een 
The food habits of the gray grosbeak are beneficial to man and as far as 
is known the bird eats practically no beneficial insect and damages no crop 
All in all, the grosbeaks are a varied and interesting group of birds. 
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Changes on Our Board of Directors 
SOME FIVE YEARS AGO the United States Department of the Interior trans- 
ferred a portion of its force from Washington to Chicago. They included 
the Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service and Bureau of Indian 
Affairs, and among their personnel were many whose duties brought them 
into friendly association with our Society. Mr. Leo K. Couch, Mr. Philip 
A. DuMont, Mr. Clifford C. Presnail and Mr. Victor H. Cahalane accepted 
membership on our Board of Directors, and during those years their counsel 
and the benefit of their broad information have been freely and generously 
given us. 
The time has now come when they have been re-transferred to Wash- 
ington, and their resignations have been most regretfully accepted. We 
shall long remember the aid and support they have given and the great 
pleasure we have had in their presence among us. 
To partially fill the vacancies thus created we are pleased to welcome 
Dr. Austin L. Rand, Curator of Birds at Chicago Natural History Museum, 
and Mr. Emmet R. Blake, Assistant Curator, to seats on our Board of 
Directors. 
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A Friendly Crow 
THE EASE with which our common crow can be trained to accept association 
with human beings’ has long been known. The following letter, dated 
September 29 and addressed to the Fish and Wildlife Service, describes 
one that evidently had left his adopted friends, but had not acquired the 
fears and consequent caution of a wild bird. 
“You might be interested in my experience of last Saturday, Sept. 27, 
and I would be interested to know whether this was a trained bird or not. 
“Last Saturday afternoon a group of us had an outdoor picnic at Turn- 
bull Woods, on Waukegan Road near Braeside station. About three o’clock 
we were getting ready to fry some steaks when a crow appeared in the 
trees beyond our tables, and in a few minutes dropped down on the ground 
within five or six feet of a good camp fire. I suggested he might be looking 
for some meat and offered him a piece, and he walked over and ate out 
of my hand, all the fat around the meat and left the fresh meat alone. 
“He aroused our curiosity and began to get attention. He hopped up 
on the picnic table and we fed him bread and bacon fat, and later butter, 
which he seemed to enjoy. He was then attracted to shiny objects and 
would take a fruit jar cover from your hand and carry it away. 
“Later, when we were better acquainted, we caught one leg and read 
