396 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



They measure 26.67 by 20.07, 26.67 by 20.07, 26.67 by 19.81, 26.42 by 

 20.07, and 25.40 by 20.32 millimetres, or 1.05 by 0.79, 1.05 by 0.79, 1.05 by 

 0.78, 1.04 by 0.79, and 1 by 0.80 inches. 



The type specimen, No. 22449 (PI. 3, Fig. 21), from a set of five eggs, was 

 taken by Mr. A. W. Anthony, near Beaverton, Oregon, on March 31, 1885, and 

 represents an average egg of the set. 



159. Corvus corax sinuatus (Wagler). 



AMERICAN RAVEN. 



Gorms sinuatus Wagler, Isis, 1829, 748. 



Corvus corax sinuatus Ridgwat, Proceedings U. S. National Museum, VIII, 18S5, 355. 

 (B 423, 424, C 226, R 280, C 338, U 4S6.) 



Geographical range : Prom British Columbia, the southern parts of the Dominion 

 of Canada and the United States, mostly west of the Mississippi Valley, south through 

 Mexico to Guatemala. Local and much rarer in the eastern United States; principally in 

 mountainous regions; south to northern South Carolina, northern Georgia, and northern 

 Alabama. 



Our Ravens have recently been separated into two races; but from the 

 information I have been able to obtain it is questionable if the alleged differ- 

 ences of the two forms will prove constant and marked enough to warrant this 

 distinction. There is not at present sufficient material available for examination 

 to determine this conclusively. I will leave this to abler ornithologists to decide, 

 and will follow the adopted nomenclature of the American Ornithologists' Union 

 for the present, including, however, the Ravens found in the eastern United States 

 in this race. 



The American Raven is more generally distributed throughout the western 

 parts of the United States than in the eastern portions of its range, where it is 

 only found locally, and principally in the more mountainous regions from New 

 E-igland and northern New York to northern South Carolina, and in the thinly 

 inhabited and heavily timbered sections of some of our Northern and Middle 

 States. It seems to make little difference to these birds how desolate the country 

 which they inhabit may be, as long as it furnishes sufficient food to sustain life, 

 and they are not hard to please in such matters. One is liable to meet with them 

 singly or in pairs, and occasionally in considerable numbers, along the cliffs of 

 the seashore, and on the adjacent islands of the Pacific coast, from Washington 

 south to Lower California, as well as in the mountains and arid plains of the 

 interior, even in the hottest and most barren wastes of the Colorado Desert, as 

 the Death Valley region, and through all the States and Territories west of the 

 Rocky Mountains. In the eastern parts of its range it is most commonly found 

 among the numerous islands off the coast of Maine, in the Adirondack wilder- 

 ness in northern New York, and especially in the extensive mountain regions of 

 North Carolina, where it appears to be as common as in many localities in the 

 West. 



