10 NATURAL HISTORY. 



The author is indebted to his friend Mr. Henry Seebohm for the following account of the 

 two birds in Eastern Siberia, the MS. notes having been kindly placed in the author's hands for the 

 present work : 



" During the whole of our long sledge journey from Nishni Novgorod as far as Tomsk the 

 Hooded Crow abounded on the roadsides, and in returning during the autumn I found it 

 equally common on the banks of various rivers which the steamer navigates between Tomsk and 

 Tobolsk and the latter town and Tyn-main. Indeed, as far as my observation goes, the whole of 

 Russia and Western Siberia may be described as a vast colony of Hooded Crows. East Siberia, 

 on the other hand, is an equally vast colony of Carrion Crows. From Kras-no-yarsk to Yen-e-saisk 

 I saw nothing but the Carrion Crow. Middendorf records the same on the Tay-na and eastwards to 

 the Sea of Okhotsk; and southwards Pjeratsky (pronounced Psheratsky) found it common in 

 Mongolia, The distance between Tomsk and Kras-no-yarsk is about 550 versts. As you travel east- 

 wards from Tomsk, for the first 200 versts the Hooded Crow only is to be seen. During the last 

 200 versts before reaching Kras-no-yarsk the Carrion Crow alone is found. In the intermediate 

 150 versts about one-fourth of the Crows are thorough-bred Hooded, one-fourth are pure Carrion, 

 and the remaining half are hybrids of every stage mulattoes, quadroons, octoroons, and so on ad 

 inftnitum. The line of demarcation between the two species may be roughly taken at the meridian 

 of Calcutta, extending north of Yen-e-saisk along the valley of the Yen-e-say, and south of that 

 town along the watershed of the Obb and the Yen-e-say. That this state of things is not of recent 

 origin is proved by the fact that it is recorded by Middendorf, who remarked the presence of 

 hybrid Crows at Yen-e-saisk as long ago as 1844. Hybrids between C. corone and C. comix occur 

 occasionally in Scotland, on the Elbe, in Txirkestan, and probably wherever both species occur. 

 The fact that these hybrids present a series of every intermediate form between the two species is 

 prima facie evidence of their fertility. I succeeded, however, in getting positive evidence of this fact. 

 On the llth of May, whilst the ground was still covered with six feet of snow, I found a pair of 

 hybrid Crows in possession of a nest near the top of a pine-tree. The nest contained one egg. On the 

 21st I climbed up to the nest again, and found it to contain five eggs. Two of these I took. On the 

 31st one egg was hatched and the other two were chipped ready for hatching. On the 26th of June I 

 again climbed up to the nest, and found that one of the young birds had either died or flown. I took 

 the other two and shot the female. She proved to be at least three-parts Carrion Crow. The feathers 

 on the sides of the neck and on the lower part of the breast and belly are grey, with dark centres. I 

 was unable to shoot the male, but I had on several occasions examined him through my binocular. He 

 had more Hooded blood in him than the female, having a very grey ring round the neck, and showing a 

 good deal of grey on the breast and under the wings. 



" My total bag of Crows at the Ku-raj'-i-ka was three thorough-bred Hooded, two males and a 

 female ; ten thorough-bred Carrions, nine males and one female ; and fifteen hybrids, seven males and 

 eight females. These figures, as far as they go. lead me to the conclusion that the female Carrion Crows 

 were all breeding away in the woods, so that I rarely got a shot at one ; whereas the female hybrids 

 were most of them barren, so that I was able to shoot as many of one sex as of the other." 



In the central and southern counties of England, where the author himself observed the Carrion 

 Crow, he has always found it breeding perfectly true, and in some parts of Huntingdonshire it was 

 by no means rare. The nest was generally placed on a high tree in the middle of a field, and was in 

 most cases difficult of access. In Scotland it is often seen in large flocks ; and Mr. Robert Gray 

 records having seen at Findlater Castle a flock which numbered 100 each of this species and of 

 the Hooded Crow. In Southern Europe it is gregarious, as both Yon der Miihle and Lindermayer 

 speak of it as a permanent resident in Greece, large numbers retiring to roost on the rocky islands, 

 and returning to the mainland at break of day. 



The habits of the Carrion Crow are so voracious, and the bird is altogether so cunning and un- 

 scrupulous, that he is looked on by the gamekeeper as a natural enemy. Nor can we wonder at this, 

 when we read of the havoc which a pair of these birds will work if unmolested. We well remember 

 visiting a little group of trees, on the estate of the Marquis of Huntley at Aboyne, from which the 

 Crows had long since taken their departure, but beneath their nests there still remained, after a lapse 

 of several months, the debris of innumerable eggs of Grouse ; in fact, nothing comes amiss to its maw, 



