14MJ ~?qC-,g 
 
)ULan't Duck the 
Crow Question! 
 
1ibrari of 
MUbo 1lcopolb 
 
A scientist investigates and condemns the crow 
By 0. L. AUSTIN, JR., PH. D. 
Drawings by DICK SPENCER 
 
HE          crow  is the duck's worst 
enemy. I make this statement un- 
reservedly, but can it be proved? 
The zoophiles and the anti-hunt- 
ing cranks claim that man in general, the 
sportsman in particular, is the duck's 
worst foe, and to prove it marshal figures 
showing the number of ducks killed an- 
nually by hunters and the decrease in 
waterfowl throughout the country. The 
sportsman is in truth the duck's best 
friend, for while he takes a certain toll 
of the yearly increase he has a genuine 
affection for the birds, based on long ac- 
quaintance, and he works honestly and 
sincerely for their preservation. 
To put the matter on a purely selfish 
basis, the sportsman realizes he can- 
 
not kill off all the ducks and still 
have his sport, and he is provident 
enough at his worst to work for the 
continuation of that sport through 
the conservation of the species which 
provides it. Thus he supplies food and 
sanctuary for the birds, and curbs his 
hunting within due bounds. The crow, 
on the other hand, wise as he is, will 
eat as many duck eggs as he can find, 
without a thought or care for the 
future. There are no figures on the 
annual kill of ducks by crows; but 
when the ducks are gone, there will 
 
still be plenty of crow food elsewhere. 
The controversy over the crow is 
not a new or recent one. For as long 
as men have tilled the soil and guarded 
their crops, they have taken an interest 
in the black marauder. For as long as 
men have loved birds-and that has been 
a long time-there have been attempts 
by some to whitewash him. The first 
serious attempt to determine the facts of 
the case was the monograph by Barrows 
and Schwartz entitled "The Common 
Crow in the United States" and pub- 
lished by the Department of Agriculture. 
The authors gave no little time to re- 
search in the field, and brought together 
most of the data extant at the time. 
Since the gay nineties, when the work 
appeared, technical and non-technical 
literature alike have been flooded with 
articles about the crow, some for and as 
many against, most of which rehashed 
the old dope, perhaps added a little new 
information, and usually concluded with 
"therefore I think." Only too frequently 
they omitted the "therefore." 
If we eliminate all the "thinks" about 
the crow and set down only what we 
know to be facts, we arrive at a simple 
tabulation somewhat as follows: 
 
1. Description: The crow is a bird, 
black in color, about seventeen inches in 
length, with a raucous voice, related to 
the raven, the jay and the magpie. 
2. Breeding habits: It builds a crude 
nest, usually in trees, in which it lays 
from three to six greenish eggs speckled 
with brown. 
3. Distribution: It ranges over the 
greater part of wooded North America; 
is migratory in some sections and a per- 
manent resident in others. 
4. Diet: It is omnivorous, and able to 
find sustenance almost anywhere. 
5. Intelligence: As far as birds are 
concerned, it has a remarkably high IQ 
(intelligence quotient). 
 
As long as men have tilled the soil, the: 
have taken an interest in the black maraude 
These five headings cover all our es- 
sential knowledge of the species. Each 
might be further subdivided and aug- 
mented almost ad infinitum, certainly 
ad nauseum, and to do so would fill sev- 
eral good-sized volumes. But in consider- 
ing the economic importance of the bird, 
we need confine ourselves only to the 
high spots of the last three items-dis- 
tribution, diet and intelligence. 
T HE first of these allows for no vari- 
ation of opinion whatever. The crow 
occurs in certain areas and not in others. 
It breeds across the continent, from cen- 
tral Canada south to central and south- 
central  United   States.  It   winters 
throughout its breeding range and oc- 
casionally somewhat southward. It is 
gregarious except when breeding, and in 
winter may gather in immense roosts, 
usually in the southern portion of its 
range. Concerning individual movements 
comparatively little is known, but we 
are rapidly learning more through the 
practice of banding. 
Concerning the second item, the diet, 
 
there is not a little conflicting evidence. 
Scientists used to consider the analysis 
of stomach contents to be the only sure 
way of determining food habits, and 
that the more stomachs you examined 
the nearer you arrived at a true picture 
of the bird's diet. The contents of liter- 
ally thousands of crow stomachs have 
been tabulated, from California to the 
Carolinas, from British Columbia to 
Nova Scotia, and the bulk of the evi- 
dence is non-committal. 
The authorities can only say "the 
crow is harmful locally, but does an im- 
mense amount of good also," by which 
is meant it damages certain leguminous 
crops but at the same time consumes 
a large quantity of noxious insects. 
This is all very well for the farmer. 
He can determine which the crows 
are doing on his own farm, and act 
accordingly. But it leaves the sports- 
man out in the cold. The fallacy lies 
in the fact that no intensive studies 
have been made in areas where the 
crow does his worst damage from 
the sportsman's viewpoint, the water- 
fowl breeding grounds, and that not 
all of the crow's food is determinable 
from an analysis of stomach contents. 
N   O one-not even the most ra- 
y    1   bid protectionist-can deny that 
r   the crow is very fond of the eggs of 
other birds and that he eats them 
whenever he can get them. The question 
is, to what extent does he eat duck eggs? 
As they seldom show in stomach exami- 
nation (the shells not being eaten), the 
proportion of eggs to the remainder 
of the diet is minute in all stomach 
analyses. But a more accurate picture 
may be obtained by studying the prob- 
lem from the opposite side and answer- 
ing the question, "What proportion of 
the duck nests in a given area are de- 
stroyed by crows?" I have some sug- 
gestive data on this point. 
There is present, winter and summer, 
in the neighborhood of the Ornithological 
Research Station on Cape Cod a small 
flock varying from ten to fifteen crows. 
These individuals range over two town- 
ships, Wellfleet and Eastham, feeding 
on the exposed sand and mud flats at- 
low tide, foraging over the uplands at 
other times. As the Cape is off the usual 
flight-route and its winters are generally 
mild and open, its small crow popula- 
tion tends to be constant the year round. 
During three years of work on other 
problems there I trapped, banded and re-