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( 183 ) 
THE HOODED CROW (CORVUS CORNIX CORNIX) 
IN WARWICKSHIRE. 
BY 
THE Late A. GEOFFREY LEIGH. 
THE Hooded Crow (Corvus c. cornix) is a regular passing 
migrant in very small numbers in the extreme north-western 
corner of Warwickshire, but this condition would appear 
to have obtained only during the past decade, for previously 
it was very seldom reported, and though it would seem 
incredible that its visits should be only of such recent date 
and confined to so small an area, records of its appearance 
elsewhere in the county are exceedingly scanty. 
The late R. F. Tomes, in the Victoria History of Warwickshire, 
Vol. I., p. 197, makes the bare statement that ‘it is an 
occasional visitor,”’ without adding details as to the locality 
or season, and the only previous instance of its occurrence 
with which I am acquainted is of an adult male killed at 
Weston-on-Avon, October 8th, 1847, and now in the Worcester 
Museum. 
On May 21st, 1883, a nest and eggs of this species, now in 
Mr. R. W. Chase’s collection, were taken from a tree in 
Sutton Coldfield Park. This, the only instance of the Hooded 
Crow attempting to breed in the county, has been made the 
subject of several records, very varying dates having been 
assigned to it. In the British Association Handbook, 1886, 
it is given as 1883; in the Zoologist, 1894, p. 344, as 
about 1887; in the Vict. Hist. Warwick as 1883 and 1894, 
while Mr. Steele Elliott, in the only account in which full 
details are given (Journal of the Birmingham Nat. Hist. and 
Philosophical Society, II., p. 34), gives 1882 as the date. 
With this exception I am acquainted with only two records 
of its occurrence, both at Sutton Coldfield, prior to October 22, 
1905, on which date one is reported to have been seen at 
Earlswood (Birmingham Daily Mail, November 4, 1905). 
In marked contrast to this paucity of previous records 
is the fact that during the period from 1908 to 1914 I met 
with the species on no fewer than eight occasions in the 
Hampton-in-Arden and Packington districts, and it is some- 
what curious that of the total number of fourteen birds seen, 
ten occurred within the boundaries of Packington Park 
and one just outside. Miss B. A. Carter informs me that 
~ since 1911 she has seen the Hooded Crow on three occasions 
at Sutton Coldfield, whilst during the winter of 1914-15 I 
saw it three times in the same district, on two occasions 
