4206 The Zoologist — November, 1874. 



adds, as an " accidental variation," — " The plumage is often entirely 

 white or almost totally black." Selby repeats this observation as 

 his own : " Sometimes this bird varies in colour, and is found 

 entirely white or black." — Illustrations of British Ornithology^ 

 vol. i. p. 352. 



Mr. W. C. Williamson, Curator to the Natural History Society, 

 reporting to the Zoological Society of London in 1836, says — " In 

 one instance a female hooded crow was observed to pair with a 

 carrion crow in a large tree at Hackness, where they succeeded in 

 rearing their young. The carrion crow was shot by the game- 

 keeper, but in the following year the hooded crow returned with a 

 new mate of the same sable hue as the former one to her old nest. 

 The carrion crow and the young crows were again all shot; the old 

 female by her vigilance escaped all the efforts of the keepers to 

 destroy her, and a third time returned with a fresh mate; she was 

 not, however, again so successful, but was shot, and is now pre- 

 served in the Scarborough Museum. The young birds varied, 

 some resembling the hooded and others the carrion crow in their 

 plumage." Macgillivray, after mentioning this record, adds — " Two 

 or three instances of the same kind are mentioned as having taken 

 place in the south of Scotland, which would lead us to believe that a 

 hooded crow left perhaps accidentally in a district where there are 

 none of its kind may readily pair with the carrion crow." — Macg., 

 iii. 721. Sir William Jardine states that he has repeatedly seen 

 the two breeding together, " the produce being birds of intermediate 

 plumage"; and again, "In the male specimens the gray parts of 

 the back and under parts are indicated by the edges of the feathers 

 being narrowly margined with gray." Unfortunately I do not 

 possess Sir William Jardine's work, but cite this from Mr. Gray's 

 'Birds of the West of Scotland,' p. 171. Mr. Gray appends this 

 remark to the passage — "A state of plumage which 1 have not 

 observed in any of the birds of mixed breed that have come under 

 my notice, the offspring from the nest showing dark specimens of 

 a genuine black, and others with gray markings equally decided." 



Several observers state that in these cases of interbreeding the 

 young are sometimes equally divided in number, that is two carrion 

 and two hooded, sometimes three and two, sometimes only one of 

 one kind and the remainder of the other. I cannot find that sex 

 has any influence on these discrepancies. A friend whom I have 

 lately met at the Zoo tells me of an instance of two carrion and 



