crow. 279 



mitted by gamekeepers, more or less commonly throughout 

 England and Wales, to the almost total exclusion of the 

 Grey Crow — the instances in which the latter, unaided by 

 the former, has been known to build its nest south of the 

 border being very few in number*. Beyond this limit, 

 however, the case is altered, and almost at once the Grey 

 becomes the commoner form, for, though the Black Crow 

 holds positions, apparently in the low-lying districts, even 

 far to the northward!, its numbers bear no comparison with 

 those of the other throughout Scotland generally, where both 

 are almost universally called " Huddies " — a name corrupted 

 from Hooded Crow, and therefore properly belonging to the 

 parti-coloured birds — the whole-coloured birds being distin- 

 guished as Black Huddies. Indeed so much do the two 

 forms intermingle that in many parts of the country the 

 notion prevails that the difference in plumage is due to sex. 

 So long ago as 1828 Fleming described the female of Corvus 



* The Editor learns from Mr. More that it is supposed to have done so in 

 Devon, but its rarity in that county at any time casts suspicion on the story. 

 Mr. Laver informed Dr. Bree that some used to breed every year near the Black- 

 water, in Essex ; but it would seem that this is not so now. In Norfolk a pair 

 is said by Hunt (Br. Orn. ii. p. 43, note) to have reared a brood in 1816 near 

 King's Lynn ; what looked like a young bird was seen near Yarmouth in July, 

 1843 (Zool. p. 316), and others near Cromer in August, 1S67 and 1877 

 (Zool. s.s. p. 1012, and 1877, p. 443). In Lincolnshire, Mr. Cordeaux shot a 

 partly-fledged example August 5th, 1873 (Zool. s.s. p. 3685). It has been 

 obsci'ved twice, or oftener, near Flamborough under circumstances which pre- 

 sume its breeding there (Zool. p. 6142, s.s. pp. 2728, 5081). Williamson 

 declared (P. Z. S. 1836, p. 76) that it had bred on two or three occasions near 

 Scarborough, but the only instances of which he gave details shew that one of 

 the parties to the union was a Black Crow. It was also reported to Mr. More 

 as breeding regularly in Cumberland, and occasionally in North Wales ; but 

 confirmation is needed in either case. That it does so, however, annually in the 

 Isle of Man seems to be established. 



f Mr. More obtained evidence of its breeding regularly in all the counties 

 south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and northwards in those of Dumbarton, 

 Argyle, Clackmannan, Perth, Aberdeen and Banff — occasionally also, it would 

 seem, in Caithness ami (if it has not been confounded with the Rook) in some 

 of the Hebrides, but whether in all these localities it breeds unpaired with the 

 Grey form, is open to doubt. St. John says that in Moray it is impossible to 

 decide on the line which divides the two birds, though the Grey Crow is so much 

 the commoner as to be the Crow of the country, and that he never saw there 

 a pair of perfectly Black Crows (Nat. Hist, and Sport in Moray, p. 58). 



VOL. II. O O 



