HOODED CROW. 9 



rious, associating in large colonies ; but I observed, when 

 once in Scotland, that there you never see more than a 

 pair at a time, and that not often : you may walk for days 

 without meeting with this bird at all. 



In severe winters, the HOODED CROW is common 

 enough all up the valley of the Wey. The common 

 between Godalming and Guildford is a favourite resort 

 with him ; and you can hardly pass along this way without 

 seeing several. They stay in the road in the most fearless 

 manner, till the horses of a coach are within twenty yards 

 of them, and, on being disturbed, take a short circuit, and 

 settle again almost on the spot they rose from. The arri- 

 val of this crow from the north takes place in October and 

 November, and liis return in March. I know no instance 

 of his breeding here, or ever being seen here in summer. 

 In the winter of 1813-14, these crows, as well as the 

 common crow and lots of ringdoves, used to come into our 

 garden, to eat the leaves of the greens ; and so severely 

 did they punish the whole of the cabbage and brocoli 

 tribes, that we got nothing at all from the stumps, when 

 the warm weather ought to have set them sprouting. The 

 tops of the plants were pecked into shreds, and stuck up 

 like a parcel of brushes ; and so remained. But the most 

 remarkable feature of that terrible winter as regards 

 birds was the number of skylarks that it actually starved 

 to death. They wandered about in flocks, from field to 

 field, from garden to garden, till they became mere bags 

 of bones, and sometimes of a morning you might find them 

 frozen to the surface of the ground : and when we drove 

 up the survivors, in the garden or the field, how forlorn 

 was their look, how weak their flight, how woe-begone 

 their voice, how different in all respects from the happy 



