some farms where stock are turned in to
clean up such grain.

Oats were taken sparingly as waste grain in summer, autumn, and winter,
and most were eaten in late winter and early spring from newly sown
fields (37.2 per cent of the February diet and 72.6 per cent of the
April diet). These percentages were probably high, since there is a high
proportion of indigestible residues in oats. This is more than
compensated for in the yearly average by the paucity of collections
made in the period when consumption of oats was highest.

Fields newly sown to oats provided a major supply of food in the early
spring when other food supplies had been depleted. However, no instance
of damage to a stand of oats was reported to me. Aldous (1944:294)
mentioned that crows fed on spring-sown oat fields in Oklahoma but
suggested that they picked up only grain which was not covered.

Sunflower seeds, although not important as a food of the crows in
eastern Harvey County, were a staple food of these wintering in the
western part of the study area. Consumption of sunflower seeds began in
September. In the latter part of December the percentage increased and
many pellets were composed entirely of sunflower seed hulls. Sunflower
seeds have a high percentage of indigestible residue.

In both popular accounts and scientific studies, the economic
significance of the consumption of weed seeds such as those of
sunflowers by birds often has been interpreted in an oversimplified
manner. It has been assumed that if crows eat several million sunflower
seeds in the winter, the sunflowers growing in the farmers' fields the
next year will have been reduced by the same number. However, like most
annual plants, sunflowers produce a great surplus of seeds each year.
Most of the seeds consumed by crows would never have a chance to grow to
maturity, even if they were not eaten. Therefore this component of the
crow's diet is only slightly beneficial or neutral for the farmer. The
effect of crows (or of the entire bird population for that matter) upon
the sunflower crop in the farmers' fields is probably slight.

Corn is one of the preferred foods of crows, but little corn was grown
in the study area. Other investigators have found higher percentages
elsewhere. In eastern Harvey County corn reached its highest point in
December but was insignificant in the diet. In the western part of the
study area it made up a larger percentage of the diet of wintering
crow