° 1906 ] Hunt, Change of Location of a Crow Roost. 429 



CHANGE OF LOCATION OF A CROW ROOST. 



BY CHRESWELL J. HUNT. 



The lower Delaware Valley contains as many if not more winter 

 Crows than any other one locality in the eastern States and one of 

 the ornithological features of this section, during the winter, is the 

 evening flight of the Crows toward their roosts. 



One of the largest roosting sites is situated in Camden County, 

 New Jersey, south of the town of Merchantville and some five miles 

 from the city of Philadelphia. This is known to ornithologists as 

 the Merchantville Roost, and here thousands of crows congregate 

 to spend the winter nights. 



On February 4, 1906, Ave spent the afternoon on Pensauken 

 Creek and toward evening, when the crows began to gather pre- 

 paratory to their evening flight, we decided to visit the Merchant- 

 ville Roost. 



Not knowing its exact location we waited until a well marked 

 flight of crows began to pass over and then we followed them. 

 After crossing numerous frozen marshy tracts, skirting others, 

 climbing worm fences, and invading the privacy of many an orchard 

 and cornfield — guided ever by the black line of homeward flying 

 crows — we at last arrived at the roost. It was situated in a patch 

 of oak and chestnut woodland of some eight or ten acres in extent 

 lying a mile and a half or so south of Merchantville. From our 

 station to the north of the woodland we could see three distinct flight 

 lines coming in — the one we had followed from the northeast; one 

 from the northwest ; one from the west. 



Some of the crows would pass on into the woods while others 

 would alight upon the ground in the surrounding fields until parts 

 of these fields were blackened and appeared, as Mr. Witmer Stone 

 has described it, to have been burnt over. 



As we sat on a fence beneath one of the flights the whirr made 

 by the wings of the incoming birds was plainly heard. It resembled 

 the rush of the surf along the beach. As night approached small 

 flocks would rise from the fields and enter the woods until at last 

 the ground was forsaken. All this while the birds kept up a con- 



