CORVUS CORNIX. 457 



bird's ; the bill softer and shorter ; iris, light blue (adults, dark 

 brown). They lay quiet, not a cry all the way home. Next 

 day the blackest— least ripe — gave a slight 'cra-a,' and gaped 

 for food. The other was mute. Next day they both gaped, 

 and took food readily. I fed them with flesh, livers, fish-guts, 

 bread steeped in milk ; in fact, took anything eatable. I have 

 now had them a fortnight. They are growing fine, and ' cra-a, 

 cra-a,' when I come near them, and flutter their wings — glad to 

 see me." [Note written at the time.] I had them above a 

 year ; they flew about the city, and always came to be fed, quite 

 domesticated. They were very tame, flew down off a tree or 

 the house-top, and alighted on my shoulder when they saw me ; 

 but the fate of all my feathered friends overtook them — killed 

 or strayed. One by one they disappeared. One had all the 

 fine grey and black of the hoody, the other all black like the 

 corby ; which made me think they might have been hybrids. 

 The hooded crow used to breed in Stravithie Wood and other 

 large fir woods in the district. In 1889 a pair bred in Kinaldy 

 Wood, another at Strathtyrum. This pair flew to the mussel 

 scaups, carried mussels high up in the air, dropped them to 

 break the shells, then ate the fish. When our fishing-boats 

 returned from Shetland that year a fisherman brought a pair of 

 young hoodies from Shetland. His house was next my garden 

 in North Street. He cut their wings, but they managed to get 

 on a fine apple tree I had, which they destroyed by peeling off 

 the bark as clean as if cut with a knife — another proof of their 

 omnivorous feeding or wanton mischief. John Lonie, a keen 

 bird-nester, shot a female on her nest at Allan Hill Strip in 

 1867. There were five young gorbs, which he threw down and 

 killed, for, like the carrion crow, the hoody is marked for 

 destruction. On April 5th, 1857, I got a fine male and female 

 from Cambo gamekeeper, which I stuffed. The one was shot ; 

 the other stamped by the leg, which was broken, but the 

 tendons held it for hours before killed. There were five, but 

 he. hunted them all down. Same date, when walking out the 

 west sands, after a prolonged easterly storm, I saw thirteen 

 hoodies, apparently drowned, lying scattered amongst the sea- 

 weed and shells, and dead guillemots. I carefully inspected 

 them ; they were not shot. Being about breeding time, they 

 had possibly been returning to Norway, had encountered the 

 adverse gale, and been unable to reach it. When walking to 

 Eden the same winter, I saw a hoody chasing a snipe on the 

 links for nearly half-an-hour, flying zig-zag. back and forward, 

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