THE CARRION CROW. 309 



states, that it is always to be found, though not very common. In 

 the neighbouring county of Kilkenny, the attention of a gentle- 

 man of my acquaintance was one day attracted by a "black crow" 

 having an extraordinary white appearance about the head. It flew 

 about a hundred yards after being first seen, and then alighted on 

 the ground. On running up to ascertain the cause of the phenom- 

 enon, he was astonished to see the identical bird fly off, an ordi- 

 nary crow; but on reaching the place where it had "pitched," 

 a duck's egg was found, which, being carried in the bill, had pro- 

 duced the appearance described ; — the egg was still whole. - * 



When at Glenarm Park, county of Antrim, in 1833, the game- 

 keeper, a native of England, who knew the bird well there, stated, 

 that he had seen a few about Glenarm, where, in the breeding- 

 season, one of them and a grey crow (67. comix) were con- 

 stantly associated together for some weeks, and, he had no doubt, 

 were paired. A Scotch gamekeeper, who soon afterwards sup- 

 plied the place of my informant, told me in the following year, 

 that he had occasionally killed the carrion crow in Glenarm Park* 

 but considered the species rather rare.f He assured me, that 

 when gamekeeper in Scotland, he had repeatedly seen the carrion 

 and grey crow paired, and had known an instance of such a pair 

 being mated for two or three years, and building in the same tree 

 annually. The identity of the grey one was sufficiently manifest by 

 its being minus a foot, which its owner had not improbably been 

 deprived of by some trap. In the instances which came under 

 the observation of my trustworthy informant, the grey crow was 

 considered to be the male, on account of its comparative absence 

 from the nest, &c. The young birds, in one nest examined by 

 this gamekeeper, were stated to have exhibited, some the plumage 

 of the grey, and others that of the carrion crow. 



* In Macgillivray's British Birds (vol. i. p. 523), an instance of the carrion 

 crow bearing off the egg of a wild duck whole, is recorded by Mr. Weir, who witnessed 

 it : — this gentleman and Mr. Hogg communicate full and interesting narrations of the 

 bird to that work. The contributions of the latter, called a " Shepherd" in the pre- 

 face have all the racy spirit of the mountain air about them, Mr. Waterton states, 

 that the carrion crow carries eggs off, " not in his bill but on the pont of it, 

 having thrust his upper mandible through the shell." 



f 1 saw specimens which had been obtained there, exhibited as " vennin. " 



