THE HOODED CROW 123 



open. I have seen it when so engaged follow the falling 

 cockle so quickly as to be on the ground almost as soon as 

 its quarry. With the marsh-men the Hooded Crow bears a 

 bad name, from his habit of devouring the birds caught in 

 the flight-nets. On these extensive marshes miles of netting 

 are set to catch the hordes of wading and swimming birds 

 that fly over them. These nets are visited every morning 

 by their owners, but too often the crafty Hoodie has been there 

 before them even before the tide has ebbed, and carried off 

 most of the birds, and so mangled the remainder as to render 

 them totally unfit for the markets. Many a wounded bird 

 that has managed to escape from these snares or has eluded 

 the gunner, falls a victim to the cunning Crows that search 

 every nook and corner of these tide-washed wastes for food. 

 In spring and autumn the Hooded Crows often congregate 

 into enormous flocks, probably for the purpose of pairing, and 

 not as " Crows' courts," assembled to administer justice and 

 punishment upon some offending member of the community, 

 as even some nineteenth-century ornithologists assert to be 

 the case. 



In winter, when these mudflats and marshes are sometimes 

 strewn with big blocks of drifted ice, and the surrounding- 

 fields are deep in snow, the Hooded Crows come close to the 

 houses and farmyards to pick up any refuse they can find, 

 often perching on the corn-stacks and pulling out the straws, 

 or making a meal on the refuse of slaughter-houses used for 

 manuring the land. As soon as spring returns and the Scan- 

 dinavian forests are free from frost, the Hoodies desert the 

 Lincolnshire mudflats and marshes and retire northwards to 

 rear their young. By no strange chance is a bird of this species 

 seen here during the summer, although there are plenty of 

 suitable nesting-places to be found. So regular are the move- 

 ments of this bird, that the fisher folk will tell you the Hooded 

 Crow and the Swallow are never seen in the air together. 



