774 The Sparrow-like Birds 



wing, the Carrion Crow is to some extent sociable and gregarious, often 

 associating with Rooks and Jackdaws, except during the nesting season. 

 They frequent pastures, fields, and especially the seacoast, and are varied in 

 choice of food, perhaps preferring the dead and stranded fish, crustaceans, 

 and carrion, often abounding in the latter place, but also feeding on young 

 birds, eggs, the young of game birds and poultry, and even attacking new- 

 born or weakly lambs; only when pressed by hunger will they eat berries. 

 Although so very shy and wary, they frequently select conspicuous locations 

 for their nests, such as a tree near a house, but on the coast they locate the 

 bulky nest among cliffs; the four to six eggs are like those of the other 

 members of the group. 



Hooded Crows. In Europe, chiefly in the north and east and thence ex- 

 tending in minor races as far as Siberia and India, is the allied Gray or Hooded 

 Crow (C. comix], which has the hood, throat, wings, and tail black and the 

 remainder of the plumage ash-gray. Except in the matter of color this species 

 is not to be distinguished in habits, notes, and nidification from the Carrion 

 Crow. Not so, however, with the Indian Hooded Crow (C. splendens] of India 

 and Ceylon, at least as regards habits. "This," says Blyth, "is the common 

 Crow of India and is an abundant, very noisy, familiar, and impudent species, 

 frequenting the vicinity of human abodes, alike in the village and in the crowded 

 streets of large towns. About the latter, they walk and hop like domestic birds, 

 wherever food is to be picked up, just stepping aside out of the way of the passer- 

 by, and regardless of the ordinary throng; but they still retain all the craft 

 and wariness of their tribe, and are ever vigilant, making off on the least sus- 

 picious movement, or even on the fixed glance of a stranger; they require but 

 small encouragement, however, to be most troublesomely bold, and do not 

 always wait for such encouragement, peeping into dwelling rooms, cawing 

 loudly the while, passing through them by different windows, and, if opportunity 

 offers, making off with anything that attracts them by the way. Though highly 

 social, this Crow is not properly gregarious, and does not build in society, though 

 from its commonness two or three pairs may resort to the same tree. Their 

 noise, from the multitude of them, is incessant, and if anything excites them, is 

 most uproarious and amazing; they are about, too, from the earliest dawn till 

 late in the evening, and are far from being quiet on moonlight nights. Eager, 

 busy, and bustling, their flight is always singularly hurried, as if time was a 

 matter of some consequence to them; and in short every trait of the Crow tribe 

 is prominently developed in this species." Another writer says: "Feeding 

 Crows on certain occasions forms part of a religious ceremony with the Hindoos, 

 and this share of the business is generally taken up by the women, with whom, 

 accordingly, Crows become very familiar, nay, sometimes so bold as to take food 

 from their hands." 



Ravens. The largest and most imposing member of this genus, and of 

 the Passeres as well, is the Raven (C. corax], which, broadly speaking, is widely 

 but often locally distributed throughout the entire Northern Hemisphere, though 

 the tendency among ornithologists in recent years is to split up the species into 



