Hooded Grow. 237 



On the eastern coast of England I have found it in some 

 numbers, as it resorts to the sea-shore for the never-failing 

 supply of food which it finds in shell-fish and other marine 

 productions thrown up by the tides ; and Bishop Stanley says it 

 may frequently be seen after vain attempts to break through the 

 hard shell of a cockle or mussel, to seize it in its bill, mount with 

 it to a great height, and then let it fall on a hard rock, by which 

 it is broken, and the bird has nothing more to do than to reap 

 the fruit of its forethought. In colour the head, throat, wings, 

 and tail are black, the rest of the plumage smoke gray. It is 

 called the Hooded Crow from its black head, and the Eoyston 

 Crow, as it was supposed to be peculiar to that district, where in 

 truth I have seen it in considerable numbers : 



' Like Royston Crows, where (as a man may say) 

 Are friars of both orders, black and gray.' 



It is also provincially named the * Gray-backed ' and the ' Scaul 

 Crow ;' and on the eastern coast, the ' Danish Crow,' and in the 

 north of England, the 'Huddie,' which is merely an abbreviation of 

 Hooded Crow or Hoodie. But most remarkable of all is the name 

 of ' Russian Nightingale,' bestowed on it at Archangel,t where 

 it is so abundant as to be considered one of the most characteristic 

 birds of the district ; but why so unmelodious a species should be 

 so designated, I am at a loss to conjecture. In France, it is La 

 Corneille manteUe, ' Crow wearing a mantle ;' in Germany Nebel- 

 Rabe, literally ' Mist Crow,' or ' Clouded Crow ;' in Sweden, Grd* 

 Krdka, ' Gray Crow/ 



97. ROOK (Corvus frugilegus). 



In a subsequent page of this volume will be found a paper 

 entitled 'A Plea for the Rooks,' which I read before the Wiltshire 

 Archaeological and Natural History Society at Malmesbury, in 

 August, 1862, wherein I pointed out the habits of this most 

 familiar bird, and endeavoured to prove its value in destroying 



J. Cleveland's Poems. 



t Messrs. Alston and Harvie Brown's ' Notes from Archangel,' in Jbis for 

 1873, p. 65. 



