CROW TRIBE. 



311 



Hooded Crow. 



lays about six eggs, light blue in colour, profusely spotted with brown. It sonic- 

 times nests in gardens, approaching the haunts of men ; at other times it is shy 

 and retiring, especially when breeding. 



Although hybridisation is comparatively rare among the true 



crows, naturalists have long been aware that the hooded crow 

 (('. comix) occasionally interbreeds with the carrion crow (C. corone) notably in 

 such parts of Scotland as both species frequent during the summer. It was, 

 however, reserved for Mr. Seebohm to discover that these two species inter- 

 breed to an extraordinary extent, the hybrid offspring of the original stocks 

 apparently proving fertile for several generations, in the valley of the Yenesei in 

 East Siberia. This is the more remarkable because both forms possess a well- 

 defined distribution, and only occasionally overlap one another in the breeding- 

 season. Many naturalists (among them Professor Newton) consider that the 

 carrion crow is only a black form or variety of the hooded crow, which has 

 lost the dun-coloured portions of the plumage peculiar to the hooded crow 

 of both sexes and all ages ; and it must be confessed that the flight and cries 

 of these two forms are to all intents and purposes identical. While, however, 

 the carrion crow lives chiefly in wooded valleys, nesting in isolated pairs, and 

 harrying the nests of other birds, the hooded crow frequents the wildest coasts 

 of Western Europe, ranging from the northern islands that fringe the continent 

 to the forest-regions of Central Russia, rearing its young with equal success 

 upon the ground, in the top of a tree, or on the face of a frowning precipice. 

 The nest of the hooded crow is often a cumbrous collection of heather-roots, 

 sticks, and seaweed, lined with softer substances well felted together. The eggs 

 vary from four to six in a clutch, and are greenish in ground-coloured, blotched 

 with dark olive-brown. 



The ordinary " crow " of the British public has long been known 



to naturalists as the rook (C. frugilegus), and as such is almost the 

 best known and most familiar of 

 European birds. The sooty plumage 

 differs from that of its Eastern repre- 

 sentative, the Siberian rook ((■. juisti- 

 nator), chiefly in having a bluish purple 

 gloss in lieu of the reddish purple of 

 the Asiatic species. The latter to a 

 large extent retains the feathers around 

 the bill, which are generally moulted 

 by the western bird when arriving 

 at maturity. Like many other crows, 

 the rook is an early breeder, nesting 

 sometimes in shrubs or even on the 

 roofs of houses, but chiefly in tall trees, 

 often in the midst of crowded streets. 

 The young are mainly reared upon 

 noxious insects in their various stages, 

 on field - voles, and waste substances. 



Rook. 



