DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAIi CLtJB. 31 



During the day, Crows forage for food. Separating in clans, 

 as it were, they distribute themselves throughout the country. 

 Then toward sunset, as if in response to some mystic call, they 

 betake themselves in flights to the roosts, sometimes many miles 

 distant. 



Although the most characteristic trait of Crows, the roosting 

 habit has received but comparatively little attention from orni- 

 thologists. For those who have never visited a roost and so 

 observed one of Nature's most interesting phenomena, we can 

 do no better than to quote Mr. Stone's account* of a visit to such 

 a winter colony in the neighborhood of Salem, New Jersey: 



"It was just dusk as we hitched our horse and entered the 

 woods; there was still no sign of Crows, but as we emerged on 

 the farther side we found that an immense flight was just be- 

 ginning to pass overhead from the westward, evidently the 

 river Crows had concluded that bed-time had come. They did 

 not, however, alight in the trees, but passed over and dropped 

 noiselessly into the low fields just before us, seeming to select a 

 black, burnt area on the far side. To our amazement this 

 ' burnt ' area proved to be a solid mass of Crows sitting close 

 together, and in the gathering gloom it was difficult to see how 

 far it extended. Four immense flights of birds were now pour- 

 ing into the fields, in one of which we estimated that 500 Crows 

 passed overhead per minute during the height of the flight. 



" It was now quite dark, and we began to think that the birds 

 had no intention of retiring to the woods, so determined to vary 

 the monotony of the scene and at the same time warm our 

 chilled bodies. We, therefore, ran rapidly toward the nearest 

 birds, and shouted together just as the first took wing. The 

 effect was marvellous; with a roar of wings the whole surface of 

 the ground seemed to rise. The birds hovered about a minute 

 and then entered the woods; we soon saw that but a small por- 

 tion of the assemblage had taken wing. Those farther off had 

 not seen us in the darkness, and doubtless thought that this was 

 merely the beginning of the regular nightly retirement to the 

 trees. The movement once started, became contagious, and the 



*Bird Lore, December, 1899. 



