256 THROUGH THE FIELDS WITH LINN ^ US 



uncommon in Scandinavia, where the carrion-crow l is 

 never found. 



At Broby he begins to feel the mildness of the 

 southern climate ; at Sinclairsholm which has a de- 

 cidedly Scottish twang about the name he fills his 

 pages with zoology. The country here is less well- 

 watered than in the north : the lakes are few, but, being 

 mostly shallow when not positively marshy, they teem 

 with living creatures. All this brings him, on May 19, 

 to Christianstad. 



An oak, hewn down yesterday, lay by the wayside ; 

 he counts the rings to find its age, marking with a X 

 the years when the rings are narrowest, and with O 

 when they were broadest, to see if these agree with 

 recorded data of heat and cold, and seeing how these 

 hot and cold seasons group themselves. His marks 

 date back a century from that time, and the grouping 

 of the O's and X's is distinct and positive. Six cold 

 seasons come without a break from 1718 to 1723, seven 

 warm seasons from 1732 to 1739, with only a break of 

 a middling season in 1735. The rest are grouped, but 



1 Corvus corone. The singular geographical distribution of these 

 birds is clearly exhibited in our Natural History Museum. The 

 hooded crow inhabits Eastern Europe and Western Asia, from Scan- 

 dinavia to the valley of the Yenesay, and from the Arctic Circle 

 down to Egypt and Afghanistan, excepting in a central belt com- 

 prising England and Ireland, France, Spain, Austria, and the Cau- 

 casus, where, as well as in Eastern Siberia, the black carrion-crow 

 replaces this variety. There is a small colony of hooded crows in the 

 north of Scotland which have crossed over from Scandinavia. There 

 are several intermediate conditions of colouring found on the con- 

 fines of that region inhabited by each of these varieties of crow. 



