acres.

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Sassafras planted by birds on arable land is not so easily exterminated. On the Hungerford farm it almost choked a peach orchard of several On the Bryan farm it attained such a growth in a cornfield previously used for grass that it had to be cut down with brush hooks (Pl. XI, fig. 1). In another part of the same lot high-bush blackberries sown by birds had to be similarly eradicated.

V.-GRAIN.

Grain had entered into the food of 38 out of the 645 birds examined. Of these 21 had picked up waste kernels and 17 had secured valuable grain, which, however, amounted to but 1.25 per cent of the food of all the birds.

Crow. The crow (fig. 24) is by all odds the worst pilferer of the cornfield. Every year at Marshall Hall, as elsewhere, a part of the field must be replanted because of his pickings and stealings.' In 1899 the replanting was more extensive than usual, requiring on the 39-acre field 1 bushel 24 pecks, 46 percent of the 3 bushels originally planted. This unusual ratio was probably caused by the failure of the cherry crop, which left the crow short of food. The protective device of tarring seed corn is employed to some extent on the Hungerford farm. In June, 1899, I planted two rows of corn, one tarred, on the edge of lot 4, near a nest of young crows. When the seed sprouted 3 kernels were pulled from the untarred row, and 7 plants were uprooted from the tarred row, the kernels of which were left intact. On May 30, 1901, a field of sprouting tarred corn on the Hungerford place was visited. In spite of the fact that a field of unprotected corn adjoined it, crows came to this field, perhaps because it was nearer woods. After three of them had walked about among the hills for fifteen minutes the place was inspected. Only three plants had been pulled up, but in each case the grain had been removed. It may be mentioned here that at Wayland, Mass., during June, 1901, crows pulled a large quantity of tarred corn, but did not eat it. The corn there had been coated with wood ashes after the tarring 7222-No. 17-02-5

and dropped by a corn planter. Some farmers object to tarring for fear of clogging the planter. At Marshall Hall lime is used instead of ashes, but most farmers who tar their corn discard the machine and plant in hills.

The injury to corn by crows at other seasons than sprouting time is, as a general thing, comparatively insignificant, but in some years it has been important when the ears were in the milk. Unfortunately at the worst times no observations were made, though crows were seen each summer feeding on corn in this stage of development, tearing open the ears and picking out the kernels in rapid succession (Pl. XI, fig. 2). In the National Zoological Park at Washington during the summer of 1896, their depredations on an acre of corn in the milk were watched and 50 percent of the crop was found to have been ruined. The only scarecrows that proved effective at Marshall Hall were dead crows and strings stretched on poles around the field and hung with long white streamers. Although in fall the number of marauders is greatly increased by reenforcements from the North, ripe corn sustains less injury than roasting ears. One reason is the fact that the extracting of a few kernels from a ripe car does not cause the rest to rot, as is the case with roasting ears. Another reason is the abundance of fall fruit. Wheat also suffers comparatively little. When it is ripening, cherries and sprouting corn divert the crows' attention. After it is cut and gathered into the shock, however, they often join the English sparrows in removing the kernels from the cap sheaves. In November, 1899, they attacked newly sown wheat also, cleaning every kernel off a patch of wet ground where the drill had failed to cover the seed. They were also observed in several instances pulling up sprouting wheat. Oats are injured even less than wheat, though crows have been noticed feeding on them at harvest time.

Crow Blackbird. The crow blackbird (fig. 25) takes grain to the extent of 45 percent of its food, as Professor Beal has shown, and is a bird that needs watching. The farmers at Marshall Hall complained that it injured sprouting corn, but observations did not show the damage to be serious. The only birds concerned in this work were those in the breeding colony in the dell on the Hungerford farm. Except in rare instances, they were not seen visiting the Bryan farm at sprouting time; consequently they could not be held responsible for serious injury there. On May 18, 1899, they were watched in their dell. The parent birds kept going to and from their nests, which held eggs or newly hatched young, and many foraged in an adjacent field of sprouting corn. Nine old birds and four nestlings were collected, but only one, an adult, had taken corn, and that one in trifling proportion. On May 30, 1901, the colony was again visited. The young were then feathered and old enough to eat vegetable food. The most available supply was a field of sprouting corn unprotected by tar, that lay within

a hundred yards of the dell. It was watched from 1 p. m. till 6 p. m., but although the birds often flew over it and in two cases alighted in it, they apparently did it no injury, and a careful search for pulled corn showed not a plant disturbed. Blackbirds probably did some mischief to corn in the milk, however, and were often seen stealing from the shock, but these offenses were trivial in comparison with their attacks on sprouting winter wheat. During November, 1900, a flock of from 2,000 to 3,000 pulled wheat on the Bryan farm, and only continual use of the shotgun saved the crop. At each report they would fly to the oak woods bordering lot 5, where they fed on acorns. birds collected had eaten acorns and wheat in about equal proportions. The flock must have taken daily at least half an ounce of food apiece,

Nine

and therefore, if the specimens examined were representative, must in a week have made away with 217 pounds of sprouting wheat, a loss that would entail at harvest time a shortage of at least ten times as much. When wheat and oats were harvested no appreciable loss was possible, as only a few blackbirds remained on the farm, and, in fact, these few appeared to be feeding on fruit or insects, or, when they did eat grain, to be taking chiefly waste kernels. During June of 1898, 1899, 1900, and 1901, when wheat was ripening or being harvested, blackbirds came from their nesting dell to the Bryan farm, but only in few instances were they seen in the wheat fields. On June 15 and 16, when oats and wheat were ready to cut on the Hungerford farm, the colony was closely watched. The young were on the wing and the

whole flock was expected to resort to the grain fields, but none were seen to enter them. On June 18, however, when oats were being cut, several birds were noted feeding on them in two instances.

English Sparrow. The English sparrow (fig. 26) is the most highly granivorous bird on the farm. The stomachs of 53 birds-17 nestlings and 36 adults-were collected. Grain had been eaten by 8 of the young a large proportion, for nearly all nestlings are almost exclusively insectivorous. It formed 86 percent of the food of the adults, all but two having taken it. Six had selected oats, 14 wheat, and 15 The number of English sparrows on the two farms varied from 200 to 1,000. They fed on grain whenever and wherever it was attainable. They did not appear to hurt sprouting fields, but did considerable harm to standing crops. In 1898 lot 4 was in wheat, and

corn.

about the middle of June, when it was nearly ready for cutting, a strip 200 yards long beside the fence near the storage barn was found broken down by sparrows. The loss by this mischief was even greater than that by their continual thefts from the rest of the field. A year later they ruined in the same way a strip of wheat several yards wide, extending from the negro cabin to Persimmon Branch, and also sections of oat fields on the upper part of the Hungerford farm. They attacked both wheat and oats in the shock, and stole much of the grain in the cap sheaves. They were seen feeding on corn in the milk, but probably selected ears that had already been torn open by crows; Dr. A. K. Fisher, however, has observed English sparrows at Chevy Chase, Md., opening and eating the tip ends of ears of corn