264 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



fractured. Would not tliis seem to show tliat the crow 

 had fallen in with a flock of chaffinches on the passage, 

 and had secured one of his fellow travellers for a meal 

 on his arrival?" In the same journal, Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney has recorded a similar instance in 1857, where a 

 hooded crow was observed at Pakefield, near Lowestoft, 

 during severe weather, " flying in chase of a small bird, 

 which, after repeatedly darting at it, the crow succeeded 

 in capturing with its bill, whilst both birds were on the 

 wing. The crow subsequently alighted to devour its 

 prey, but on the approach of the observer, again picked 

 it up in his bill and flew away with it." Mr. Dowell 

 on one occasion, in 1847, when driving between Holt 

 and Blakeney, saw two hooded crows chasing a lark 

 across a stubble, one taking up the chase when the 

 other was tired, and thus pursuing their jjrey till out 

 of sight. My friend, Mr. Frederick Mills, also informs 

 me that whilst snipe-shooting on Surlingham broad 

 in the winter of 1862, he came suddenly upon a 

 hooded crow devouring a Httle grebe (P. minor), 

 by the side of the water. On shooting the crow and 

 examining its victim, it was evident that the latter 

 had been only just killed, and had probably been 

 pounced upon at the edge of the reed-bed. Sir Thos. 

 Browne alludes to this species as the " Corvus variegatus 

 or pied crow, with dun and black interchangeable. 

 They come in the winter and depart in the summer; 

 and seem to be the same which Clucius describeth in the 

 Faro islands, from whence perhaps these come." 



CORVUS FRUGILEGUS, Linn^us. 



EOOK. 



There are strange anomalies in the habits of certain 

 species, which are hard to be accounted for even by 



