WINTER ROOSTING COLONIES OF CROWS. 29:5 



found as winter residents, and roosting colonies of several 

 hundred individuals have been reported, yet the large majority 

 of Crows migrate southward to spend the winter. Audubon says 

 they " become gregarious immediately after the breeding-season," 

 forming large flocks which towards autumn remove to the 

 Southern States. Dr. C. Hart Merriam tells me that in New 

 York, soon after the nesting-season, as early as July and August, 

 the Crows collect in flocks which gradually increase in size until 

 numbering several hundred individuals. In October these flocks 

 migrate, and, with the Crows indigenous to our more southern 

 territory, form the winter colonies. 



These colonies have been reported from Delaware, New 

 Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, in the East, and 

 from near St. Louis, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, iu the 

 West. Mr. Ehodes gives a list of fourteen roosts : eight in 

 New Jersey, two of which are now in use, the others having been 

 deserted from two to forty-five years; four in the Delaware 

 Eiver, one of which, Eeedy Island, is now in use, the others 

 deserted from twenty to seventy years; and two in Pennsylvania, 

 one of which is in use, the other deserted eight years. 



The literature of Crow-roosts is not very extensive. The 

 most historic is the Pea-patch, described by Wilson, "near 

 Newcastle, on an island in the Delaware .... a low, flat, 

 alluvial spot of a few acres, elevated but little above high -water 



mark and covered with a thick growth of reeds It is 



entirely destitute of trees, the Crows alighting and nestling 

 among the reeds, which by these means are broken down and 

 matted together." The colony was once destroyed during "a 

 sudden and violent north-east storm " by the tide flooding the 

 island. Wilson continues : " This disaster, however, seems long 

 to have been repaired, for they now congregate on the Pea-patch 

 in as immense multitudes as ever." 



According to S. W. Ehodes this historic roost, the condition 

 of which Nuttall in 1829 did not know T , "was abandoned soon 

 after the construction of Ft. Delaware was begun in 1814, and 

 .... the Crows betook themselves to Eeedy Island as the most 

 convenient substitute." Nuttall first tells us of the colony at 

 Eeedy Island. Mr. George W. Jones, keeper of Eeedy Island 

 Lighthouse, in a report kindly sent me by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, 

 says : — " The island, one mile from the mainland, opposite Port 



