EASTERN CROW 255 



in the roost continued in increasing volume. At 6:40 the roost boiled over again, 

 but the birds spreading in all directions soon united into a black river that flowed 

 over the dunes to the south. The settings of this black stream were the white 

 sand dunes and the luminous glow in the east which had become a brilliant 

 crimson fading to orange and yellow and cut by a broad band of pink haze 

 that streamed up to the zenith. The morning star glowed brightly until almost 

 broad daylight. The sun rose at 7:14. At 7 I entered the roost and hurried 

 away the few hundred remaining birds some of whom were in the bare tops of the 

 hardwoods ready to depart, while others were still dozing in the evergreens below. 



Nuttall's Ornithology (1832) gives an account of tvi^o roosts on the 

 Delaware River in Pennsylvania. One of them was on an island, near 

 Newcastle, called the Pea Patch, a low flat alluvial spot, just elevated 

 above high-water mark, and thickly covered with reeds. The crows 

 took shelter in the reeds and at one time during the prevalence of a 

 sudden and violent northeast storm accompanied by heavy rains, the 

 Pea Patch Island was wholly inundated in the night. The crows ap- 

 parently made no attempt to escape, and were drowned by thousands. 

 The following day the shores for a distance of several miles were 

 blackened by their bodies. 



Stone (1899) states that the crows that inhabited Pea Patch and the 

 neighboring Reedy Island were estimated at 500,000. 



Another famous crow roost is one located in Brookland, near Wash- 

 ington, D. C, which accommodates practically all the crows that feed 

 in the vicinity. Oberholser (1920) estimated that this roost contained 

 200,000 birds. A very large crow roost was located at Arlington, Va., 

 across the Potomac from Washington. Dr. W. B. Barrows estimated 

 that 150,000 to 200,000 crows came to it every night during the 

 winter of 1886-87. 



Widmann (1880), in connection with an account of a crow roost 

 located on Arsenal Island opposite the southern part of St. Louis, 

 writes: "As early as August they begin to flock in, first by hundreds, 

 then by thousands, and in December hundreds of thousands sleep there 

 every night. The roar they make in the morning and evening can be 

 heard for miles around, and the sight of the influx of these multitudes 

 in the evening is something really imposing." Later Widmann (1907) 

 in writing about this roost stated: "All through fall and in moderately 

 cold weather in winter, the Crows spent the nights perched ten to fifteen 

 feet above the ground in the willow thicket of the island, but when 

 the cold weather became intense they deserted the willows entirely 

 and spent the nights on the snow-covered sand bank in front of the 

 willow thicket and exposed to the fierce northwest and north wind. 

 When they had gone in the early morning, every bird had left an imprint 

 of its body in the form of a light depression in the snow with a hole in 



