HOODED CROW. BAT 
tains; [but the Hooded Crow waits for a more temperate season, and 
seldom sets about nesting-duties before the middle of April. Its nest is 
sometimes placed in a tree, sometimes on the rocks, both inland and on 
the ocean cliffs. It will also, where large trees and rocks are scarce, make 
its nest in bushes and small birches and firs only a few feet from the 
ground ; and Gray states that it will sometimes build on the roofs of huts. 
The nest is composed of almost every material which can be applied to the 
architect’s purpose. Large sticks and twigs, stalks of heather, bones, moss, 
turf, wool, and feathers are all used. From the fact that the bird returns to 
its old habitations year after year, many nests are very bulky structures, 
and the greater part of the outside material is bleached by the weather. 
The inside is smooth, soft, and compact, and rather deep. The eggs of 
the Hooded Crow are four or five in number, and are absolutely wndistin- 
guishable in size and colour from those of the Carrion-Crow. They exhibit 
precisely similar types and variations as the eggs of that bird, rendering a 
description of them unnecessary. 
When I was in Siberia in 1877 I had an excellent opportunity of investi- 
gating the question of the interbreeding of the Hooded and Carrion-Crows. 
The boundary-line between the enormous colony of Hooded Crows in 
Russia and West Siberia and the equally vast colony of Carrion-Crows in 
East Siberia lies between the towns of Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk, which 
are about 350 miles apart. As you travel eastwards from Tomsk, for about 
120 miles the Hooded Crow only is to be seen on the roadsides, and during 
the last 120 miles before reaching Krasnoyarsk the Carrion-Crow alone is 
found. But in the intermediate hundred miles or more a very curious 
state of affairs presents itself. About one fourth of the Crows are thorough- 
bred Hoodies; one fourth are pure Carrion-Crows; and the remain- 
ing half are hybrids of every stage—mulattoes, quadroons, octoroons, and 
so on, ad infinitum. The fact that these hybrids present every intermediate 
form between the two species is primd facie evidence of their fertility. I 
succeeded, however, in getting positive evidence of this fact. On the 
Arctic circle, in the valley of the Yenesay, early in May, whilst the ground 
was still covered with six feet of snow, a couple of hybrid Crows paired 
together and built a nest near the top of a pine tree. On the 11th it 
contained an egg; on the 2lst I climbed again up to the nest and found 
it to contain five eggs, two of which I took. On the 3lst one egg was 
hatched and the other two were chipped ready for hatching. On the 26th 
of June I again climbed up to the nest and found that one of the young 
birds had either died or flown. I took the other two and shot the female, 
She proved to be at least three parts Carrion-Crow. ‘The feathers on the 
sides of the neck and on the lower part of the breast and belly are grey, 
with dark centres. I was unable to shoot the male; but I had on various 
occasions examined him through my binocular. He had more Hoodie 
9n 2 
2N2 
