SPECIES 4. CORPUS OSSIFRAGUS. 



FISH-CROW. 

 [Plate XXX VII. Fig. 2.] 



PEALE'S Museum, JVo. 1369. 



THIS is another roving inhabitant of our coasts, ponds, and 

 river shores; though a much less distinguished one than the pre- 

 ceding,* this being the first time, as far as I can learn, that he 

 has ever been introduced to the notice of the world. 



I first met with this species on the coast of Georgia, and ob- 

 served that they regularly retired to the interior as evening ap- 

 proached, and came down to the shores of the river Savannah, 

 by the first appearance of day. Their voice first attracted my 

 notice, being very different from that of the common Crow, 

 more hoarse and guttural, uttered as if something stuck in their 

 throat, and varied into several modulations as they flew along. 

 Their manner of flying was also unlike the others, as they fre- 

 quently sailed about, without flapping the wings, something in 

 the manner of the Raven; and I soon perceived that their food, 

 and their mode of procuring it, were also both different; their 

 favourite haunts being about the banks of the river, along which 

 they usually sailed, dexterously snatching up, with their claws, 

 dead fish, or other garbage, that floated on the surface. At the 

 country seat of Stephen Elliot, Esq. near the Ogechee river, I 

 took notice of these Crows frequently perching on the backs of 

 the cattle, like the Magpie and Jackdaw of Britain; but never 

 mingling with the common Crows; and differing from them in 

 this particular, that the latter generally retire to the shore, the 



* The Fish-Hawk, figured in the same plate, and which immediately pre- 

 cedes the Fish-Crow, in the text of the original edition. 



