22 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis 



the vast sandbar at the foot of the island with innumer- 

 able black dots, and as many more again stay on the large 

 ice field which stretches now along the shallow eastern 

 shore like a continuation of the sandbar. 



Here they are on the bare ice from 4 p. m. till 7 a. m., 

 fifteen long hours, with temperature near zero, exposed 

 to the fierce wind without any shelter at all. How they 

 can stand it is more than I know, and although I have 

 found frozen Crows, and Crows with stumped toes as 

 reminiscences of former experiences, I still believe, as a 

 rule, they stand the rigors of our winter quite well. The 

 first sunny mild day, and immediately after the coldest 

 spells, the Crow thinks of courting, and shows all signs 

 of an amorous Crow whose love is not by our tempera- 

 tures refrigerated. 



This courting is done openly, in broad daylight, so- 

 cially, gracefully. The Crows gather on a sunny hillside 

 or some similarly favorable place, and talk to each other 

 in the softest crow language ; one flies straight up into the 

 air, soars for a moment, floats gracefully down, cheered 

 by the rest, amidst which he alights to see others do what 

 he did. 



'As soon as the weather becomes mild and the ground 

 free from snow and ice, the Crows begin to disperse. This 

 is generally not before February, and sometimes quite 

 late in that month, but by the middle of March their 

 ranks are thinned out very much, and few are left after 

 the first of April. Generally, their departure is not par- 

 ticularly noticed, it being a continuation of their daily 

 flight, failing to return to the roost in the evening. 



But sometimes I have seen two birds flying together in 

 a northerly direction, even in the afternoon, and right 

 against the incoming stream of Crows. These I take for 

 absconders, ready to dispense with sociability, the two 

 being enough c>ompany by themselves. With the begin- 

 ning of the breeding season the history of the common 



