10 HOODED CKOW. 



The habits of this bird resemble those of the preceding 

 one, except that it more confines itself to the sea-shore, and 

 the adjacent line of country, about a dozen miles inland, 

 \ oil owing also the course of tidal rivers and estuaries, on whose 

 banks it finds its food. They are to be seen in larger or 

 smaller companies of every possible variety of number. On 

 the east coast of Jura, one of the western islands of Scotland, 

 MS many as five hundred were seen together after a storm. 

 In the ast-Kidii)g of Yorkshire, I generally see them in 

 small flocks of half a dozen or a dozen. A. pair are said to 

 have built near Kings Lynn, in Norfolk, in 1816, but this 

 is the only instance that seems to have occurred so far south. 

 Xear Scarborough, in Yorkshire, a few pairs have bred. In 

 one instance indeed, on a large tree* at Hackness, a pair they 

 were not, for one was a Carrion Crow, and the other a 

 Hooded Crow. The former was shot by the gamekeeper, and 

 the next year the female returned with a black partner. He 

 and his progeny, some of which resembled their male parent, 

 and others the female, were shot; she, by cunning, managed 

 to keep out of harm's way, and the third year returned again 

 with a fresh mate. -This time, however, she was herself shot, 

 and is now preserved in the Scarborough Museum. Some 

 have supposed, from repeated instances of this kind, that this 

 species and the Crow are identical. 



The sea-shore, with its ebbing and flowing tide, furnishes 

 the main support of this species, and it also plunders the 

 nests of sea-fowl, and is said occasionally to destroy young 

 lambs. No animal substance comes amiss to it, and it is 

 only stern necessity that makes it at all put up with a 

 vegetable diet. It resorts to the same mode as the Carrion 

 Crow of breaking shell-fish open. 



Its note resembles that of the Carrion Crow, but is rather 

 more shrill. It has two tones; the one grave, the other more 

 acute. 



The Hooded Crows do not build in companies, like the 

 Hooks, but separately, like the Carrion Crows. 



The nest is placed in trees, or in the clefts and chasms of 

 rocks and hill sides, and is composed of sticks, roots, stalks, 

 and heather, and is lined with wool and hair. 



The eggs, from four to six in number, are light green, 

 mottled all over with .greenish brown. 



Male; weight, about twenty-two ounces: length, one loot 

 eight inches; bill, bright black the basal half covered with 



