HOODED CROW. 247 



The female is now in the Scarborough Museum (Wilham- 

 son's Scarborough Catalogue, 1836). Near Beverley a pair 

 bred in 1876, and a nest with young, near Easington in 

 Holderness, was recorded by the late J. Cordeaux in the 

 Naturalist (1896, p. 5). In the north of the county a pair 

 nested on Hornby Castle estate, where the female was trapped 

 in 1865, and at Clifton Castle a pair was observed all the 

 summer of the year 1880 (James Carter MS., and Field, 20th 

 November 1880). 



The members of the Crow family are, proverbially, of a 

 rapacious nature, and the species under notice is in this respect 

 equally guilty with its relations ; amongst its many crimes 

 may be catalogued that of killing and eating salmon ; the 

 delinquents in this case were seen in the high reaches of the 

 river Ure at Mickley, on 26th December 1888, in the act of 

 devouring the fish which they had caught on the shallow 

 spawning grounds ; two Grey Crows were noticed chasing 

 a Black-headed Gull near Beverley ; and the late Canon 

 Atkinson of Danby mentioned in the Zoologist (1875, p. 4420), 

 two instances of these birds attacking Partridges on the wing. 



It is not needful here to enter into the controversial 

 question as to whether the Hooded and Carrion Crows are to 

 be considered separate species ; it is proved that they inter- 

 breed, and that the progeny are fertile, and partake of the 

 characters of both parents. In the Newcastle Museum is a 

 hybrid, taken near Richmond, whose plumage is all black, 

 with the exception of a grey band across the breast (" Birds 

 of Northd. and Dm." p. 35). The only other Yorkshire variety, 

 at present recorded, is a light-coloured specimen at Coverhead, 

 on 9th October 1884. 



Folk lore connected with this species is not voluminous, 

 though the remnant which is preserved proves that the 

 migratory habit of the bird was known many years ago to 

 dwellers in the Cleveland dales, who used to work a charm 

 invoking the aid of the Hooded Crow. The account of this 

 quaint ceremony was communicated by an old Cleveland 

 woman, who remembered it being commonly resorted to 

 in her grandmother's time, and who had herself worked it 



