re oviposition has a greater ecologic
significance than one eaten after she has laid her eggs and is ready to
die.

Beetles made up more than half of the insect component of the diet.
Scarabaeids were readily recognizable. Other beetles were classified as
predaceous or non-predaceous according to the type of mandibles found.
When mandibles were lacking the occurrences were listed merely as
unclassified beetles, and those made up 5.6 per cent of the yearly food
residues. Predaceous beetles made up 3.3 per cent, whereas
non-predaceous beetles made up only 1.3 per cent. Both were found in
one-half of the collecting periods. Predaceous and non-predaceous
beetles formed 1.2 per cent of the yearly food residues. This
preponderance of predaceous beetle material is what might be expected
from the manner in which crows feed. Many predaceous ground beetles of
the family Carabidae would be found under rocks and clods and on the
ground.

Beetles were a constant component of the diet in summer. They reached a
peak of 48.7 per cent in the last part of July. In November the
percentage declined and by December they formed only 2.5 per cent of the
diet.

Scarabaeid beetles were utilized in large quantities when they were most
abundant; they made up 28.7 per cent of the diet in the latter part of
June. The larvae of scarabaeid beetles are destructive to wheat and
alfalfa and live in the ground from one to three years before
metamorphosing into adult beetles. Adults emerge from the ground from
April to mid-August, the maximum flight occurring in May and June. Most
of the eggs are laid from the last of May to the middle of July (Hayes,
1920:306). Afterward the adults soon die. Many of the beetles are
nocturnal, but some of the more important destructive forms are diurnal
(Hayes, 1918:142). Crows pick up the diurnal forms when they are active
and perhaps find the nocturnal forms under clods or in burrows and eat
them in ecologically significant numbers.

Crows are beneficial to the farmer insofar as they control the
populations of scarabaeids and other non-predaceous beetles. However,
destruction of predaceous beetles is harmful to the farmers' best
interests.

Grasshoppers, second only to beetles in the insect component of the
diet, are among the most destructive insects in Kansas. Eggs laid in
autumn overwinter and hatch the next summer, from April to August,
depending upon the species. The maximum numbers of grasshoppers are
pres