62 BIRDS OF THE HUMBER DISTRICT. 



some portion of them come over in the daytime. 

 On the afternoon of October 18th, 1866, wind S.E., 

 when at sea two miles S.E. of Flamborough Head, I 

 observed a long straggling flock pass over, flying at 

 a considerable height, but gradually descending as 

 they neared the white cliff's of the headland. They 

 keep much together in small flocks and companies 

 during the winter, but by the first week in March 

 have broken up into pairs, only congregating again 

 for some special object, and for a few days previously 

 to leaving the country. On the morning of the llth 

 of April, 1870, I saw about a score leave the coast, 

 flying in line at a considerable altitude, by a course 

 which, if persevered in, would land them on the Naze 

 in twelve hours. Like the Carrion-Crow, they devour 

 almost any thing, in long-continued frost and snow 

 attacking and flying off with weakly and half-starved 

 birds, as Fieldfares and Thrushes. In the early spring 

 they wade the shallows in the drains, and commit 

 great havoc amongst the frog-colonies on their spawn- 

 ing-grounds. In the spring of 1871 I saw a pair of 

 these Crows in the Cotes marshes on the 13th of 

 May, and a single bird on the 23rd. The same year, 

 on the 22nd of June, Mr. J. H. Gurney, Jun., ob- 

 served a pair at Flamborough*. 



* Mr. Yarrell (Brit. Birds, 2nd edition, vol. ii. p. 85), on the 

 authority of Mr. W. C. Williamson, Curator of the Nat.-Hist. 

 Society, Manchester, says: "The Hooded Crow has been 

 known to breed near Scarborough on two or three occasions. 

 In one instance a female Hooded Crow was seen to pair with 



