THE CARRION-CROW AND THE HOODED-CROW 21 



chaffinches, thrushes, and the like, suffer especially from these raids, 

 but larger birds, ducks, pheasants, waders, and others do not escape. 

 The robbers have even been known to carry their audacity so far as 

 to enter and despoil the nest of the golden-eagle, in the absence, of 

 course, of its mighty owner. On one occasion a grey crow was ill- 

 advised enough to allow itself to be caught in the act. In spite of all 

 the cunning twists and turns of its hot-winged flight, it was closely 

 pursued and savagely buffeted till it screamed again. One marvels 

 that it escaped with its life. 1 



When the crow, black or grey, finds the nest of one of the larger 

 species, such as ducks or herons, its habit is usually to wait not 

 far off in patient silence till the sitting bird goes away for food. 

 It then loses no time in rifling her treasures. In the case of the 

 smaller birds it is not so patient, and does not scruple to drive 

 them off* their nest. Once in possession of an egg, it either pecks 

 a large hole in one side and sucks out the contents, or carries it 

 away in its bill. Dr. Saxby, who kept a tame hooded-crow, noted 

 that, finding hen's eggs too large to carry in this way, it broke 

 open the shell, sucked part of the contents, and then grasping one 

 of the edges of the hole between its mandibles, took its booty away to 

 be consumed at leisure in some more retired spot. It is perhaps this 

 method of carrying the larger eggs that has led some observers to 

 believe that crows, gulls, and other predatory birds fly with them 

 " spiked " on the point of the bill, a feat that seems scarcely possible. 2 



Perhaps the most remarkable feeding habit of crows is that of 

 breaking open shell-fish, crabs, even bones and walnuts, by taking 

 them up into the air and letting them fall to the ground, the birds 

 themselves descending each time so as to reach earth at almost the 

 same moment, a wise precaution if other crows happen to be about. 

 Whether or not this habit, which is common to a fair number of 

 species, including the raven and the rook, has to be acquired by each 



1 R. Gray, Birds of the West of Scotland, p. 173. 



2 Mr. E. Selous informs me, however, that he has seen a moorhen transfix three eggs in 

 succession and walk off with them spiked on the bill. 



