68 BUILDS AN OPEN NEST. 



chorus, and spoils the melody. If reposing on the 

 soft warm sandy beach in dreamy reveries, listen- 

 ing to the lip-lap of the ripple, and thoroughly 

 enjoying the quietude of surrounding nature, a 

 flock of roystering crows are sure to alight on the 

 rocks close by, and do their best to display their 

 vocal capabilities. It surely must have been one 

 of the British- Columbian crows that quaint old 

 JEsop knew ! 



They also go farther inland to breed, building 

 their nests of sticks in low bushes, often not 

 four feet from the ground, where there are no 

 tall trees. I saw one little stream, east of the 

 Cascades, where the low alder-bushes growing 

 along its banks were quite as thickly filled 

 with the nests of the Barking Crow as the trees 

 in an English rookery are with rooks' nests. 

 I could look into some of them, and into all 

 readily put my hand without climbing; the 

 sticks are neatly crossed and piled together, 

 and the interior lined with grass stalks, hair, 

 bits of lichen, and dry leaves ; the nests are open 

 at the top, and five was the greatest number of 

 eggs I saw in a nest. The Barking Crow is 

 found in every part of British Columbia or Van- 

 couver Island, and the lesser islands in the Gulf 

 of Georgia ; simply changing their quarters from 



