270 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Its favorite haunts are on the seashore, from which it seldom strays 

 very far; it is a common resident bird about the wooded shores of the 

 bays and on the beaches, where it feeds with the gull on shellfish and 

 refuse thrown up by the waves. Theed Pearse writes to me that on 

 Vancouver Island it is now showing signs of spreading out into many 

 square miles of logged-over and burnt-over hillsides near the shore but 

 that its main habitat is on the shores, especially where there are small 

 coniferous trees. 



A. M. Bailey (1927) says that in southeastern Alaska these "crows 

 are especially numerous about the towns and villages, hanging about the 

 camps for food. At low tide, the flocks repair to the flats, where they 

 secure an easy living among the mussel beds." 



Nesting.— J. H. Bowles (1900) writes: 



On the Tacoma Flats, at the head of Commencement Bay, is a small cluster 

 of Siwash Indian houses, which are bordered by a line of scrubby apple and 

 cherry trees. In these trees six or seven pairs of this sociable little crow band 

 together in a colony during the nesting season. The nest is placed in a crotch at 

 a distance from ten to eighteen feet above the ground, the same one being made 

 over each returning season. On one occasion I saw two occupied nests in an 

 apple tree only twenty feet high. Its appearance differs greatly from that of 

 omericanus, as it closely resembles a roiuid basket having a very slight projecting 

 rim of sticks. The average rim of projecting sticks in a series of americamts I 

 have found to be 9.78 inches, while that of cauritius is only a trifle over 4 inches. 

 The inner dimensions average about 7 inches in diameter by 4 inches in depth. The 

 composition also is nearly the same, only the material used is much less coarse, 

 being a foundation of fine sticks and mud, lined with cedar bark. 



Mr. Bailey (1927) "found a nest in Patterson's Bay, Hooniah Sound, 

 May 17, which was about twenty feet from the ground in a small hem- 

 lock. The nest was a rather bulky aflFair of spruce twigs, lined with 

 dried grass, while the interior cup was composed entirely of deer hair. 

 There were four eggs in the nest. Crows were abundant on Forrester 

 Island, and it was there that Willett called my attention to a peculiar 

 habit of theirs, that of nesting under boulders on the beach. They 

 placed their nests far back in rather inaccessible places." 



S. J. Darcus (1930) says that on the Queen Charlotte Islands "many 

 nests were found, all built on the ground beneath bushes or windfalls 

 close to sea shore." Mr. Pearse tells me that on Vancouver Island most 

 of these crows resort to the vicinity of the sea for nesting and nests will 

 be found in quite low bushes and even in the side of a sandy bank. On 

 June 16, 1940, a nest containing four eggs was found about 8 feet from 

 the ground in a small fir in the logged-over area. Earlier reports of 

 nests roofed over, like those of magpies, were probably based on in- 

 correct identification. Mr. Rathbun writes to me: "For several years 

 my home was near the crest of a high bluff along the Sound, its base 



