28 



of birds that had lost their previous sets, or from aged birds whose pro- 

 ductive powers are waning. 



In the foregoing summary, no account has been taken of abnormalities 

 or monstrocities. The latter are by no means common, and with the 

 species under consideration, very rare indeed. The "runt" egg which 

 comes under this head, has been attributed to the exhaustion of the pro- 

 ductive organs of the female, after producing an unusually large number of 

 eggs, the final egg being not only unnaturally small, but infertile as well. 

 The smallest egg of this species on record was taken by Mr. I. C. Green, 

 Amherst, Mass., with three eggs of the normal size.. It contained no 

 yolk, and measures i.igx,g^, which is somewhat smaller than the egg of 

 a Saw-whet Owl. 



Contour. — Coues. in his Birds of the Xorthiuesf, says : "In measur- 

 ing many hundred eggs I have noticed that the variation, however great, 

 is less in absolute bulk than in contour." In view of this it would appear 

 to me that the true and most accurate method, were it practicable, of 

 comparing a large series of eggs with that of another, would be to ascer- 

 tain the capacity of each and every shell of the species. Whether the 

 result would justify the extra time, risk, and skill employed, I am unable 

 to say. The eggs of the Crow are usually ovate, often running from short 

 ovate to elongate ovate, and less often from short ovate to ovate, in a 

 clutch. Cylindrical ovate and ovate pyriform are very rarely met with in 

 eg^?> of this species, and oval and spherical only in abnormal specimens, 

 which are frequently if not always infertile. In a set of two eggs taken 

 by Mr. J. C. Brown, Carthage, Mo., May i, 1893, one egg is of the usual 

 size and shape, the other is almost spherical, measuring i.^jx/.jS. To 

 the eye, this egg would appear perfectly round. This set is now in the 

 collection of Mr. |. Warren Jacobs. 



Color. — In my oological collection, I have a series of sets of the 

 American Crow, from Connecticut, Northern New York, Southern Michi- 

 gan, Minnesota and Manitoba, nearly all of which can be readily sepa- 

 rated from my North Carolina, California, Kansas, and Pennsylvania 

 series by reason of their very dark ground color or heavy markings. The 

 Northern eggs, with some exceptions, exhibit a ground of French- bice- 

 chromium- or pea-green, variously spotted and blotched. For Pennsyl- 

 vania a very light malachite-, chromium- or glaucous-green, are the usual 

 colors, with an occasional set or single of a bice- French- or pea- 

 green, or more often of an indescribable greenish-grey or faded nile-blue. 

 Eggs from more Southern sections appear even lighter and with fewer 

 dark sets. I have never yet found the " sea green " ground color so 

 often given in the standard works as the tyyMcal color of the egg. 



