130 FISH-CROW. 



harsh jarring of a door. These the Crow now before us would fre- 

 quently seize with his claws, as he flew along the surface, and retire to 

 the summit of a dead tree to enjoy his repast. Here I also observed 

 him a pretty constant attendant at the pens, where the cows were 

 usually milked, and much less shy, less suspicious, and more solitary, 

 than the comroon Crow. In the county of Cape May, New Jersey, I 

 again met with these Crows, particularly along Egg Harbor river ; and 

 latterly on the Schuylkill and Delaware, near Philadelphia, during the 

 season of shad and herring fishing, viz., from the middle of March till the 

 beginning of June. A small party of these Crows, during this period, 

 regularly passed Bartram's gardens, to the high woods, to roost, every 

 evening a little before sunset, and as regularly returned at or before 

 sunrise every morning, directing their course towards the river. The 

 fishermen along these rivers also inform me, that they have particularly 

 remarked this Crow, by his croaking voice, and his fondness for fish ; 

 almost always hovering about their fishing places, to glean up the re- 

 fuse. Of their manner of breeding I can only say, that they separate 

 into pairs, and build in tall trees, near the sea or river shore ; one of 

 their nests having been built this season in a piece of tall woods, near 

 Mr. Beasley's, at Great Egg Harbor. The male of this nest furnished me 

 with the figure in the plate, which was drawn of full size, and afterwards 

 reduced to one-third the size of life, to correspond with the rest of the 

 figures in the same plate. From the circumstance of six or seven being 

 usually seen here together, in the month of July, it is probable that 

 they have at least four or five young at a time. 



I can find no description of this species by any former writer. Mr. 

 Bartram mentions a bird of this tribe, which he calls the Great Sea- 

 side Croiv ; but the present species is considerably inferior in size to 

 the common Crow ; and having myself seen and examined it in so many, 

 and remotely situated, parts of the country, and found it in all these 

 places alike, I have no hesitation in pronouncing it to be a new and 

 hitherto undescribed species. 



The Fish-Crow is sixteen inches long, and thirty-three in extent; 

 black all over, with reflections of steel-blue and purple ; the chin is bare 

 of feathers around the base of the lower mandible ;* upper mandible 

 notched near the tip, the edges of both turned inwards about the middle ; 

 eye very small, placed near the corner of the mouth, and of a dark hazel 

 color ; recumbent hairs or bristles large and long ; ear feathers promi- 

 nent ; first primai-y little more than half the length of the second, fourth 



* This must have been an accidental circumstance, as I have seen specimens, the 

 chin of which was entirely covered. In tlie month of April, I shot a fine male, on 

 the Delaware, seventeen inches long, thirty-three broad. The chin covered. This 

 epecies is greatly infested with lice, insomuch that when one handles them, one gets 

 .covered with these disagreeable vermin — G. Ord. 



