CROWS 199 



in this vicinity carefully but failed to find any sign of ravens 

 nesting. On April 16, however, as we sat on the rim looking 

 down to the mouth of the cove we saw a pair sailing leisurely 

 over the middle of the gorge. They passed within about 200 

 yards of us, then began to soar higher and passed out over 

 the Tennessee Valley toward the Cumberland Mountains of 

 Tennessee. A resident of Carpenter, in the valley, later told 

 me that ravens are known to nest in these mountains, near 

 Ketchall, Marion County, Tennessee. 



General habits. — The raven is a wild, unsocial bird, choos- 

 ing for its home the most rugged and inaccessible portions of 

 the country and avoiding the habitations of man. In the East 

 it is exceedingly wary and very difficult to approach, but in 

 the West, where it is usually unmolested by man, it is remark- 

 ably unsuspicious, frequenting slaughter pens and ranch 

 buildings with no sign of timidity. 



Although resembling the crow rather closely in general ap- 

 pearance, the raven is much larger and may always be identi- 

 fied by his harsh guttural croak. 



Food habits. — The food of the raven is chiefly carrion, 

 varied with small rodents, frogs, mussels, snails, and grass- 

 hoppers, crickets, and other insects. The bird is sometimes 

 accused of robbing hen's nests and of picking out the eyes of 

 domestic animals that are sick or helpless. 



SOUTHERN CROW: Corvus brachyrhyttchos pavlus 



Howell.* 



Sta^e records. — Crows are generally distributed in the State 

 but seem to be nowhere so abundant as in the Northern States. 

 The form occurring in Alabama is decidedly smaller than the 

 northern crow, and has a much more slender bill. It has 

 recently been described by the writer as a new subspecies. 



Specimens have been examined from Florence, Greensboro, 

 Autaugaville, Barachias, Whistler, Bayou Labatre, and Bon 

 Secour. In a grove of oaks near Irvington, November 18, 

 1915, I found a good-sized flock, but as a rule the species is 

 rather sparsely distributed in the pine flats of the coast region. 



'For use of thia name see Howell, A. H., Proc. Biol. Soc Washington, vol. 26, pp. 

 199-202, 1913 ; also The Auk, vol. 40, p. 522, 1923. 



