AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 217 



who are acquainted with their habits as obsei ved in 

 Northamptonshire. We, however, strongly recom- 

 mend all who are interested in the subject to read 

 Professor Newton's remarks thereupon in the fourth 

 edition of Yarrell's ' British Birds,' and to form their 

 own conclusions, merely remarking that on one 

 point, i. e. the absolute similarity of cry, vide loc. 

 supra cit. p. 278, we must entirely disagree with 

 the author. The Black or Carrion-Crow, although 

 unceasingly and vigorously pursued to death by 

 everyone who knows its habits, is a common bird 

 in all parts of Northamptonshire with which we 

 are acquainted, and is to be met with generally 

 in pairs at all times of the year, but in wilder 

 and less preserved parts of our country we 

 have often observed flocks of Crows to all outward 

 appearance behaving very much after the manner 

 of Rooks, and coming in night after night to a 

 roosting-place with less outcry, but with much the 

 same preparatory aerial evolutions as their congeners. 

 About the third week in April the Carrion-Crow 

 builds, or returns to its old nest, its partiality for 

 particular nesting-sites being very remarkable. We 

 are acquainted with many instances in which a pair 

 of these birds having been shot and their eggs or 

 young and nest destroyed, another pair took posses- 

 sion of the same tree in the following spring, and if 

 the old nest is allowed to remain it is almost always 

 tenanted. 



We have not a word to say in defence of the 

 Carrion-Crow. His habits appear to us to be purely 

 noxious, and neither his personal appearance, voice, 

 or manners in captivity offer anything in extenuation 

 of his natural evil propensities. After a flood our 



