40 HOODED CROW. 
The habits of this bird resemble those of the preceding 
one, except that it more confines itself to the sea-shore, and 
the adjacent line of country, about a dozen miles inland, 
following also the course of tidal rivers and estuaries, on whose 
banks it finds its food. They are to be seen in larger or 
smaller companies of every possible variety of number. On 
the east coast of Jura, one of the western islands of Scotland, 
as many as five hundred were seen together after a storm. 
In the East-Riding of Yorkshire, I generally see them in 
small flocks of half a dozen or a dozen. A pair are said to 
have built near Kings Lynn, in Norfolk, in 1816, but this 
is the only instance that seems to have occurred so far south. 
Near Scarborough, in Yorkshire, a few pairs have bred. In 
one instance indeed, on a large tree at Hackness, a pair they 
were not, for one was a Carrion Crow, and the other a 
Hooded Crow. The former was shot by the gamekeeper, and 
the next year the female returned with a black partner. He 
and his progeny, some of which resembled their male parent, 
and others the female, were shot; she, by cunning, managed 
to keep out of harm’s way, and the third year returned again 
with a fresh mate. This time, however, she was herself shot, 
and is now preserved in the Scarborough Museum. Some 
have supposed, from repeated instances of this kind, that this 
species and the Crow are identical. 
The sea-shore, with its ebbing and flowing tide, furnishes 
the main support of this species, and it also plunders the 
nests of sea-fowl, and is said occasionally to destroy young 
lambs. No animal substance comes amiss to it, and it is 
only stern necessity that makes it at all put up with a 
vegetable diet. It resorts to the same mode as the Carrion 
Crow of breaking shell-fish open. 
Its note resembles that of the Carrion Crow, but is rather 
more shrill. It has two tones; the one grave, the other more 
acute. 
The Hooded Crows do not build in companies, like the 
Rooks, but separately, hke the Carrion Crows. 
The nest is placed in trees, or in the clefts and chasms of 
rocks and hill sides, and is composed of sticks, roots, stalks, 
and heather, and is lined with wool and _ hair. 
The eggs, from four to six in number, are light green, 
mottled all over with greenish brown. 
Male; weight, about twenty-two ounces; length, one foot 
eight inches; bill, bright black—the basal half covered with 
