276 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



along the banks of inland rivers in central Pennsylvania, as far west as 

 Harrisburg and Columbia. 



Courtship. — Dr. Dickey (MS.) writes: "During the first two weeks 

 of April fish crows become especially animated and proceed with mating 

 impulses. Generally two males are seen to bicker over a single female. 

 The three of them then hurry through the high canopies of crack wil- 

 lows, elms, oaks, and even some evergreens. They will half unfold 

 the wings, lean back against boughs, and open their red beaks in a 

 seeming defensive attitude. Then away they glide, from the trees of the 

 stream banks, across wide plantations of truck gardeners. They will, 

 on breezy days, dally with one another, and even touch wings and heads. 

 In all, they have a playful, captivating manner in midair at this time 

 of year." 



Nesting. — Aretas A. Saunders writes to me that in the vicinity of 

 Fairfield, Conn., where the fish crow is a "regular, but rare summer 

 resident," nesting takes place late in April or in May." The nests are 

 generally in small colonies, two or three pairs with their nests not far 

 apart in a certain locality. I have found such colonies in two types of 

 localities — swampy woodlands where the trees are tall and the nests 

 high up and rocky places on the edge of a salt marsh, where the rocks 

 stand up like islands in a salt marsh sea and are clothed with red 

 cedars and pitch pines. Nests in such places are in the pitch pines and 

 not very far up. Such localities are used year after year if conditions 

 are not disturbed. At present I know of but one nesting locality of the 

 swampy woods type." 



I find in Owen Durfee's notes for May 10 and 11, 1903, the records 

 of two Connecticut nests, also near Fairfield. The first was 64 feet 

 from the ground in an 11 -inch black oak. "The nest was composed 

 of small, dry sticks, well mixed in with old cornstalk strings. It was 

 placed in the topmost crotch of the tree, where the diameter was only 

 2 inches, the tree being only about 4 feet higher. It was 14 inches in 

 diameter and built up 14 inches high. Inside it was 7^ inches in 

 diameter and hollowed 5^ inches. It was lined, but not felted, with 

 strips of grapevine bark." The second nest was similar, 61 feet up in 

 a 13-inch chestnut and about 9 feet from the top of the tree. It was 18 

 inches in diameter and built up 12 inches in a three-pronged crotch. 

 "The lining was principally of strips of inner bark of the chestnut, with 

 two large clumps of white horsehair and a little grapevine bark." 



The only fish crow's nest I have ever examined was found near 

 Little Egg Harbor, N. J., on May 27, 1927. In a large patch of bac- 

 charis bushes on a low sand dune on the edge of Little Sheepshead, I 

 found a colony of seven or eight nests of the green heron. The crows 



