HOODED CROW. 87 



eggs, young cliicks, and even turkey poults, I would have 

 shot them had they been a pair of Carrion Crows ; but I was 

 anxious to watch the result of what appeared to me at the 

 time a remarkable union. Judging from the manners of the 

 two birds, the almost constant incubation, and carefulness 

 exhibited, I should say that the Hooded Crow was the fe- 

 male, though the Carrion Crow did frequently sit upon the 

 eggs. After the young of the first year took Aving, I per- 

 ceived that the one was a Carrion and the other a Hooded 

 Crow, and this distinctive character Avas maintained in the 

 young which were hatched every year, as long as I remained 

 in that part of the country. I shot the first young pair, and 

 ascertained that the Hooded one was the female, and the 

 Carrion was the male, which confirmed me in my conjecture 

 of the sexes of the parents. Ever after young and old were 

 unmolested by me ; but, notwithstanding the increase of 

 number every year after the first one, only one pair came 

 annually to build on these beech trees." Another remark- 

 able instance is noticed in Mr. Atkinson's Compendium of 

 the Ornithology of Great Britain, page 30, where a male of 

 the Hooded Crow paired with a female of the Carrion Crow 

 at Aroquhar, on Loch Long, and this singular attachment 

 had subsisted three or four years ; their nest was like that of 

 the Carrion Crow, in the fork of a tall pine, and the young 

 brood had already flown ; but the party were unable to pro- 

 cure one of them, or to ascertain which of the parents they most 

 resembled. Li further proof of birds in a wild state some- 

 times pairing with others not of their own species, I may 

 quote a letter received from R. H. Sweeting, Esq. of Char- 

 mouth, stating that a keeper brought him a pair of Harriers, 

 genus Circus, which he had just shot together at their nest 

 in a furze brake, in the act of feeding their young, the female 

 of which proved to be a Ringtail, and the male an example 

 of Montagu's Harrier. Another instance is recorded in the 



