236 HOODED CROW. 



Corsica and Sardinia ; in Italy also, and Sicily, as well as in the 

 Cyclades, it is resident. To North-Western Africa it is only a 

 visitor, but in Egypt it is very abundant where there are trees, 

 breeding in February and March ; it is also found in Syria, and 

 it swarms in Southern Russia ; while eastward it can be traced 

 through Asia Minor and Persia to Afghanistan ; and northward, 

 through Turkestan and Siberia as far as Tomsk. Between that 

 place and Krasnoiarsk — -about 350 miles east — ^the area is occupied 

 by hybrids between this bird and the Carrion-Crow, the latter be- 

 coming, as already stated, the representative form in Eastern Siberia 

 (Seebohm). 



In the south of Ireland the Hooded Crow sometimes has eggs 

 by the middle of March (Zool. 1883, p. 337), but in Scotland it is 

 later in breeding. According to circumstances, the nest is placed 

 on inland rocks, sea-cliffs, tall trees, low bushes, on the ground 

 among heather, or even on the roofs of huts. The materials are 

 similar to those employed by the Carrion-Crow, and the eggs, 4-5 

 in number, cannot with certainty be distinguished, but they are often 

 slightly larger, paler, and of a brighter green ground-colour. The 

 call-notes are similar, and so are the habits and food, although 

 perhaps the Hooded Crow is rather the bolder robber. I have seen 

 a young one greedily devouring the carcase of a recently shot mem- 

 ber of the same brood. 



The thoroughbred bird has the head, throat, wings, tail and 

 thighs black, glossed with greenish-purple ; the rest of the body 

 ashy-grey, with a few dark streaks down the centres of the breast- 

 feathers ; the remainder as in the Carrion-Crow, the grey colour 

 forming the sole distinction. To some extent the hybrids are fertile, 

 and Mr. Seebohm found every intermediate state of plumage 

 between the two forms. A large case of specimens illustrating 

 these gradations has been presented by him to the Natural History 

 Museum at South Kensington. Northern examples of the Hooded 

 Crow are rather larger than those resident in the south of Europe, 

 and also, as a rule, than Carrion-Crows from Scotland ; the latter 

 apparently attaining its fullest development in the centre and south 

 of Europe. Professor Newton has expressed with his usual perspi- 

 cacity the reasons for not admitting their specific distinctness ; but, 

 without entering into argument, it has seemed expedient to treat 

 them under separate headings in the present work. 



