1482 



THE PERCHING BIRDS 



Hooded Crow 



(C. crassirostris}; and the white-bellied crow (C. scapulatus]. This last is a hand- 

 some bird, easily recognized by its black and white or parti-colored plumage. It 

 obtains much of its food about the high roads, examining the droppings of the 

 animals that pass by and picking the carcasses of such as perish on their journeys. 

 It makes its nest in trees or in the recesses of rocks, and lays about six eggs, light 

 blue in color, profusely spotted with brown. It sometimes nests in gardens, 

 approaching the haunts of men; at other times it is shy and retiring, especially 

 when breeding. 



Although hybridization is comparatively rare among the true crows, 

 naturalists have long been aware that the hooded crow (C. comix} 

 occasionally interbreeds with the carrion crow (C. corone) notably in such parts of 

 Scotland as both species frequent during the summer. It was, however, reserved 

 for Mr. Seebohm to discover that these two species interbreed to an extraordinary 

 extent, the hybrid offspring of the original stocks apparently proving fertile for sev- 

 eral generations, in the valley of the Yenisei in East Siberia. This is the most 

 remarkable because both forms possess a well-defined distribution, and only occa- 

 sionally overlap one another in the breeding season. Many naturalists (among them 

 Professor Newton) consider that the carrion crow is only a black form or variety of 

 the hooded crow, which has lost the dun-colored portions of the plumage peculiar 

 to the hooded crow of both sexes and all ages; and it must be confessed that the 

 flight and cries of these two forms are to all intents and purposes identical. While, 

 however, the carrion crow lives chiefly in wooded valleys, nesting in isolated pairs, 

 and harrying the nests of other birds, the hooded crow frequents the wildest coasts 

 of Western Europe, ranging from the northern islands that fringe that continent to 

 the forest regions of Central Russia, rearing its young with equal success upon the 



ground, in the top of a tree, or on the 

 face of a frowning precipice. The nest 

 of the hooded crow is often a cumbrous 

 collection of heather roots, sticks, and 

 seaweed, lined with softer substances 

 well felted together. The eggs vary 

 from four to six in a clutch, and are 

 greenish in ground color, blotched with 

 dark olive brown. 



The ordinary ' ' crow ' ' 

 of the British public has 

 long been known to naturalists as the 

 rook (C. frugilegus), and as such is 

 almost the best known and most fa- 

 miliar of European birds. The sooty 

 plumage differs from that of its Eastern 

 representative, the Siberian rook (C 

 pastinator) , chiefly in having a bluish- 

 purple gloss in lieu of the reddish pur- 

 The latter to a large extent retains the feathers around 



Rook 



ROOK. 



pie of the Asiatic species. 



