106 CROW 



musical sounds which are like pepper and salt to the 

 ear." (Burroughs.) 



Crackles spend much time on the ground, hunting 

 worms, grasshoppers and other insects, and as they 

 walk about the city parks, or in the country over 

 greening meadows and new-ploughed fields, they are 

 a picturesque part of the spring landscape. 



They nest in small colonies, generally building in 

 the tops of trees. The nest is. bulky and deep, and 

 the eggs, 4 to 6, are dingy white, scrawled and spotted 

 with brown. 



American Crow: Corvus americanus. 



Length 19 inches. 



Black all over, with steel-blue and purplish reflections. 



Resident (abundant) all the year. 



Residents of Washington are familiar with the sight 

 of a seemingly endless procession of Crows strag- 

 gling across the sunset sky to the famous roost at 

 Arlington. In the earliest morning hours the same 

 birds might have been seen passing eastward to their 

 feeding grounds on the Chesapeake shores. Why 

 Crows should take this long journey twice a day, 

 often against strong winds and winter storms, is a 

 mystery; we wonder that they do not choose a roost- 

 ing place nearer their food supply. 



The Arlington roost fomerly covered from twelve 

 to fifteen acres, and at times as many as one hundred 

 and fifty thousand Crows gathered there nightly, but 

 since the winter of '94-'95 the number has been greatly 

 reduced and the roost has been broken up and 

 scattered into several places about the District. The 

 Agricultural Department published in 1895 a bulletin, 



