102 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



country may therefore induce these birds to 

 prefer the neighbourhood of this treeless tract to 

 the wooded and highly cultivated region which 

 extends to the very shore in the more western 

 part of Sussex; and admitting this conjecture to 

 be correct, the partiality of the carrion crow to 

 the latter district may be accounted for in a simi- 

 lar manner. 



I should have observed that carrion crows, even 

 where they occur in the greatest numbers during 

 the winter months, as at Pagham harbour and 

 the inlets of the sea to the south of Chichester, 

 seem always, more or less, to live in pairs, and 

 never assemble in large flocks, as hooded crows 

 are well known to do in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of Brighton, and even on the beach between 

 the houses and the sea. 



The food of both these birds, as well as that of 

 the raven, at this season of the year consists of 

 oysters, mussels, small crabs, marine insects? 

 worms and dead fish which are cast up by the 

 waves. Indeed even the rook is driven by the 

 same necessity to the sea-coast during the preva- 

 lence of severe frost, and partakes of the same 

 fare. At Pagham, in the vicinity of the oyster- 

 beds, I have frequently seen the carrion crow 

 ascend to a great height in the air with one of 

 these fish in his claws, and after letting it fall on 



