THE HOODED CROW 121 



breeders, generally contriving to bring up their young when 

 the egg season is in full swing. Every year the same nest is 

 tenanted, or a new one made on the old site, if it has been 

 blown down or otherwise destroyed. The nest is built in 

 trees as well as on rocks, the latter situation being generally 

 chosen. I have seen its bulky nest in a stunted thorn tree 

 on the bleak hillside, but when a tree is selected it is generally 

 the tallest and most inaccessible in the neighbourhood. When 

 on the rocks, a crevice or a shelf is selected, and here the nest 

 is often very bulky, the accumulation of years and years. 

 The outside is made of sticks and branches of heather ; finer 

 twigs and pieces of turf are used for the inside, which is 

 finally lined with a thick warm bed of moss, wool, and 

 feathers. It is very similar in appearance to the nest of the 

 Eook, but is rather deeper, and the lining is perhaps more 

 copious. The eggs of the Hooded Crow are four or five in 

 number, precisely similar in size and colour to those of the 

 Eook and Carrion Crow, being greenish-blue or pale green in 

 ground colour, spotted and blotched with greenish-brown of 

 various shades and pale gray. Only one brood is reared in the 

 year, but if the first eggs are taken others will generally be laid. 

 Both birds assist in incubation, the sitting-bird often 

 being fed on the nest by its mate ; and as soon as the young 

 are hatched the depredations of the parents increase. Made 

 bold by their hungry clamouring young, they are a perfect 

 pest to the poultry-keeper, and carry off everything eatable 

 they can find. The young are even fed and tended for some 

 little time after they quit the nest. In many places where 

 the geographical ranges of the two species impinge, the 

 Hooded Crow regularly interbreeds with the Carrion Crow, 

 and every intermediate form between the two birds can be 

 obtained. Most of this interbreeding takes place in Western 

 Siberia, but in Scotland these two Crows occasionally mate 

 together and produce more or less fertile offspring. 



