SOUTHERN CROW 259 



New Jersey: 146 records, March 30 to June 12; 74 records, April 

 15 to May 7. 



Ontario: 12 records, April 14 to July 5; 6 records, April 25 to 30. 



Oregon: 17 records, April 16 to May 27; 9 records, April 29 to 

 May 11. 



Texas : 9 records, February 28 to April 26. 



West Virginia: 27 records, April 5 to May 28; 13 rec.ords, April 

 12 to 19. 



Washington: 6 records, April 22 to May 22. 



CORVUS BRACHYRHTNCHOS PAULUS HoweU 

 SOUTHERN CROW 



HABITS 



This southern race was named by Arthur H. Howell (1913) from a 

 type collected in Alabama and described as "decidedly smaller than 

 Corvus b. hrachyrhynchos, with a much slenderer bill. Nearest to 

 Corvus b. hesperis but with shorter wing and slightly larger bill." He 

 says further: "Although the bird is nearest to C. b. hesperis in size, 

 its range apparently is separated from the range of hesperis by a strip 

 of country in central Texas in which no crows breed." He gives as its 

 range "Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, southeastern Texas, Georgia 

 (?), South Carolina, and north to the District of Columbia and south- 

 ern Illinois." It evidently intergrades with brachyrhynchos at the 

 northern and western limits of this range. He also says that it is de- 

 cidedly smaller than the Florida crow, pascuus, which is rather re- 

 markable, as Florida races of other birds are generally smaller than the 

 more northern races. 



I cannot find that the habits of the southern crow are materially 

 different from those of the eastern crow on the one hand, or the Florida 

 crow on the other hand, depending on the conditions in which it lives. 

 It builds similar nests in many different kinds of trees and feeds on 

 similar classes of food. It has some of the bad habits of the northern 

 race but is nowhere so abundant as to do much damage, and it destroys 

 so many injurious rodents and noxious insec.ts that it probably does 

 more good than harm and should not be molested. 



M. G. Vaiden writes to me: "These birds are not so plentiful in the 

 Yazoo-Mississippi Delta of the Mississippi as they are in the hill section 

 lying some 70 miles to the east of the Mississippi River. However, 

 large numbers are found during the latter part July and in August 

 and September, feeding along the mud bars of the river and about the 

 great number of barrow pits left from levee construction, where they 



