152 SPRING AT THE CAPITAL. 



ing their course to the wooded heights on the Poto- 

 mac, west of the city. In spring these diurnal mass 

 movements cease ; the clan breaks up, the rookery is 

 abandoned, and the birds scatter broadcast over the 

 land. This seems to be the course everywhere pur- 

 sued. One would think that, when food was scarcest, 

 the policy of separating into small bands or pairs, and 

 dispersing over a wide country, would prevail, as a 

 few might subsist where a larger number would starve. 

 The truth is, however, that in winter, food can be had 

 only in certain clearly defined districts and tracts, as 

 along rivers and the shores of bays and lakes. 



A few miles north of Newburg, on the Hudson, the 

 crows go into winter-quarters in the same manner, 

 flying south in the morning and returning again at 

 night, sometimes hugging the hills so close during a 

 strong wind, as to expose themselves to the clubs and 

 stones of school-boys ambushed behind trees and 

 fences. The belated ones, that come laboring along 

 just at dusk, are often so overcome by the long jour- 

 ney and the strong current, that they seem almost on 

 the point of sinking down whenever the wind or a 

 rise in the ground calls upon them for an extra effort. 



The turkey-buzzards are noticeable about Wash- 

 ington as soon as the season begins to open, sailing 

 leisurely along two or three hundred feet over head, 

 t»r s weening low over some common or open space, 

 wberc, perchance, a dead puppy or pig or fowl has 

 been thrown. Half a dozen will sometimes alighl 

 ibout some such object out on the commons, and witu 



