CROWS 



(491) Nucifraga columbiana 



(Wihon) {Lat.. nut breaking). 



CLARKE'S NUTCRACKER; 

 CLARKE'S CROW. Sexes alike. 

 Plumage as shown. Body gray, 

 lightening on the head; outer tail 

 feathers and ends of some secondaries 

 white; rest of wings and tail sooty- 

 brown. Immature birds are similar 

 but the back is brownish-gray. 

 L., 12.50; Ex., 22.00; W., 7.50; T., 

 4.50; B., 1.70. A rather stockily 

 built bird. Nest — Well up in ever- 

 greens; composed of twigs and white 

 sage, lined with bark, grasses and 

 jiine needles; three to five grayish- 

 green eggs, sprinkled with blackish. 



Range — Western North America, 

 breeding in boreal zones from Alaska 

 and Alberta south to Mexico; casual 

 in Neb. and Mo.; accidental in la. 

 and Wis. 



critters are carnivorous, herbivorous, grainivorous and 

 pestiferous — chiefly the latter. " Battered hats, old coats 

 and cast-off trousers, flapping on slender skeletons among 

 growing corn, give mute evidence of one of the pestiferous 

 crow traits. But despite their damage at an early stage to 

 young corn, at other times they destroy quantities of beetles, 

 grasshoppers, grubs, cutworms, etc., and are also of some 

 value as scavengers. Crows along the coast south of Long 

 Island are smaller than the common one and have a shorter, 

 hoarser caw; they are specifically known as Fish Crows, for 

 their food is largely of fish cast up on the beaches. 



They keep in flocks at all seasons except during nesting, 

 and even then are not widely separated; if one nest is dis- 

 turbed, a dozen crows will appear from somewhere to caw- 

 about it. In winter, flocks unite and repair nightly to 

 extensive "crow-roosts," each flock scattering in the morn- 

 ing to its favorite feeding ground, perhaps twenty or more 

 miles away. 



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