170 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



pools of dark brown water edged with peat banks, and unadorned 

 with sylvan verdure. Even the water lily, with its splendid white 

 flowers floating in the deep bog, reflects no glory on the surrounding 

 scenery, but selfishly draws all your regard to itself. There, 011 

 the rifted crag, let the dark Raven croak to his mate." * 



From this suggestion no reasonable reader who has suffered even 

 a fortnight's imprisonment in that strange part of the world will, 

 I am sure, interpose a word of dissent. 



THE CARRION CROW. 

 COH V US CO RONE. 



As this bird invariably pairs with the next mentioned species in 

 almost every district of western Scotland where the two are found; 

 and as in size, habits, form, and general mode of living the birds 

 are perfectly identical, it is impossible, on examining specimens of 

 either, to say from what parentage they have sprung. From this 

 fact, therefore, it is difficult to believe in the existence of two 

 species in the district of country with which this work is more 

 immediately connected; for, although the fact of the carrion and 

 hooded crows breeding together in isolated cases has long been 

 well known to ornithologists, the habit is so persistent in the 

 middle districts of Argyle, Dumbarton, and some parts of Inver- 

 ness, that it seems reasonable to regard these counties as the 

 boundary line where the two races unite. t When it is borne in 

 mind, however, that the hooded crow is found at all seasons of 

 the year in great numbers in Egypt and many other countries 

 lying much further south than Britain, and that even in the 

 southern portion of Britain itself the bird is migratory, the ques- 

 tion becomes rather a perplexing one. It has even been stated 

 by Mr Edward Blyth, in his notes to an edition of Cuvier's " Ani- 

 mal Kingdom" (London, 1840), that the black crows which had 

 been observed, by Naumann and other authors, breeding with 

 Corvus comix and producing fertile offspring, were, in truth, black 

 varieties of the hooded crow ! an argument which lie had, some 



* History of British Birds, vol. i., p. 509. 



+ Dr Dewar informs me that he has, on three occasions, met with Carrion 

 Crows paired in the west of Scotland: once at Lochfineside in 1867, and twice 

 in the following year on the banks of Loch Lomond. 



