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HOODED CROW. 

 Corvus cornix (Z.)- 



Winter visitant, most abundant near the coast, where it arrives 

 in October, leaving in March or April. Only of exceptional occurrence 

 in some inland districts, whilst in others it is an annual visitor. Has 

 occasionally remained to breed. 



For the earliest local reference to this bird the observations 

 of Ralph Johnson are quoted, and, although he wrote of the 

 Durham side of the Tees, his remarks apply to both shores 

 of the estuary : — 



" The Royston Crow — Mr. Johnson [of Brignall, near Greta 

 Bridge] calls it Sea-Crow, and saith it is frequent about 

 Stockton in the Bishoprick of Durham, near the mouth of 

 the River Tees." (Will. " Orn." 1678, p. 22.) 



Thomas Allis, 1844, reported as follows : — 



Corvus comix. — Hooded Crow — Is rarely met with near York or 

 Sheffield ; more frequently near Doncaster ; my friend Samuel Routh 

 of Exthorpe has a single individual that has located itself on his 

 premises for twenty winters past ; it is more frequently met with at 

 Thorne, and is very abundant in the lowlands not far from the coast ; 

 it has been known to build near Scarborough. (See Yarrell's " British 

 Birds," Vol. ii.. p. 86.) 



As one of our best known autumn migrants, the Hooded 

 Crow makes its appearance on the coast with remarkable 

 regularity in the first week of October ; at Spurn, in the 

 extreme south-eastern point of the county, it arrives on or 

 about the 7th of the month ; my observations at the Tees- 

 mouth, on the opposite end of the seaboard, show that the 

 average date of its arrival is October 6th, and the earliest 

 noted was on loth September 1880. Generally speaking, 

 from the 3rd to the 7th of October it may be looked for, and, 

 although odd birds are sometimes seen in September, the 

 main migration does not take place until mid-October or 

 November. In 1902 the earliest arrival was on the ist of 

 October, a single bird mobbed by Starlings ; in 1904 the 

 first was noted on the 25th of September. 



The observations communicated to the British Association 



