ORNITHOLOGIST 



OOLOGIST. 



$1.00 per 

 Aonnm. 



Joseph M. Wade, Editor and Publisher. 

 EetabliBhed, Maroli, 1875. 



Single Copy, 

 10 Cents. 



VOL. VII. 



NORWICH, CONN., MAY, 1882. 



NO. 15. 



Clarke's Crow. 



CAPT. CHXH. E. BENDIRE, U. S. A. 

 CONCLUDED. 



Ill the Spriuf^ of 77 I commenced my 

 search on March 15th, and although I 

 looked carefully and repeatedly over the 

 enth'e ground gone over the j'ear before, 

 and over sew localities as well, I failed to 

 see a single bird, where on the previous 

 season they had been foiuul comparatively 

 plenty. Puzzled to account for their ab- 

 sence I looked around for the possible 

 cause of it, and knowing that these birds 

 live almost exclusively on the seeds of the 

 pine (in fact, all the sjjecimens I have ever 

 dissected, shot mostly in the Winter 

 months, however, had theii- crops tilled 

 with these seeds and nothing else), I nat- 

 urally first examined the trees for their 

 principal food supply and found that not 

 a tree in a hundred bore ripe cones, and 

 although there were' many green ones I 

 foiuid none mature. This fact, then, ac- 

 counted fully and plainly for their absence. 

 During the next "Winter, 77-78, I found a 

 few of these bii'ds occupying their old 

 haunts again, but not nearly as many as in 

 previous seasons, and I commenced my 

 search as usual again in the latter part of 

 March. On April 4:, 1878, 1 found my first 

 nest. It was placed near the extremity of 

 a small limb, about forty feet from the 

 ground, very hard to get at, and in trying 

 to pull the limb down somewhat with a 

 rope so that it could be reached from a 

 lower limb it lu-oke and the eggs were 

 thrown out of the nest. This also con- 

 tained three eggs, and iiK'ubatioii. at tliis 



early date even, was very far advanced. 



On April 8th, 78, I found another nest 

 containing two eggs with good-sized em- 

 bryos. This was likewse placed in a pine 

 tree and near the extremity of one of the 

 limbs, about sixteen feet from the ground. 

 The only way this nest could be got at was 

 by leaning a pole against the limbs of the 

 tree and climbing to the nest by it, in 

 which, after a good deal of labor and 

 trouble, I finally succeeded. 



The type specimens obtained liy me 

 measured respectively 1.22x0.95 inches 

 and 1.20x0.90 inches. The ground color 

 of these eggs is a light grayish green and 

 they are irregularly spotted and blotched 

 with a deeper shade of gray, jjrincipally 

 about the larger end. On the smaller egg 

 the spots are finer and more evenly distrib- 

 uted. The last two eggs obtained are 

 somewhat larger, measuring 1.26x0.95 

 and 1.30x0.92 inches. Their markings 

 although somewhat finer are about the same 

 as in the type specimens. They are elon- 

 gated, oval in shape and considerably point- 

 ed at the smaller end. The second set of 

 eggs fomid by me, which, unfortunately, 

 were broken, were more of a greenish 

 ground color and also much heavier spot- 

 ted. There is no doubt that there will be 

 considerable variation found when a num- 

 ber of sets of eggs of this bird are placed 

 together for examination. That this species 

 should only lay but three eggs to the set 

 seems also rather strange, but as far as my 

 personal observations go such is the fact. 



The nests, although looking quite small 

 when viewed from below, are rather bulky 

 affairs after all when closelv examined, their 



