BUZZARD'S REST. 47 



improbable that any antagonism should arise between 

 the sexes after the nesting season. There is certainly 

 no confliction of interests. If there existed such ana- 

 tomical differences as made one sex decidedly weaker 

 than the other, then post-nuptial habits acquired by the 

 stronger sex might draw them away from the others, 

 and an absolute separation, for a time, result ; but this 

 is not the case in any one of the sixteen birds I have 

 had under observation. 



In the case of crows, I believe I have never found a 

 strictly isolated nest. There have always been others 

 quite near, and usually five to ten pairs build in such 

 proximity that each pair is more or less associated with 

 all the others. When the young leave the nest, they 

 remain with their parents and neighbors, and the little 

 colony, now perhaps treble the original number, remain 

 associated until October, when they are lost in the large 

 flocks formed by the uniting of scores of small colonies. 

 During the nesting season, each bird could distinguish 

 his or her mate from a dozen or more individuals ; so 

 why not from a thousand ? And when the nesting sea- 

 son returned, why should not the mated birds of a past 

 year renew the labors of nest-building and the rearing 

 of their young ? The old sites are revisited, and every 

 action is indicative of familiarity with the locality. To 

 say, each spring, these are not the crows of last year, is 

 merely to assume it, and that often against evidence to 

 the contrary. 



It must be borne in mind, too, that it is the female 

 bird that decides upon the locality for the nest. She it 

 is who returns to her home of the past summer ; and 



