THE AMERICAN CROW. 89 



immediately after it has brought its young abroad, when the family remains 

 undispersed for some weeks. 



Wherever our Crow is abundant, the Raven is rarely found, and vice versa. 

 From Kentucky to New Orleans, Ravens are extremely rare, whereas in 

 that course you find one or more Crows at every half mile. On the contrary, 

 far up the Missouri, as well as on the coast of Labrador, few Crows are to be 

 seen, while Ravens are common. I found the former birds equally scarce 

 in Newfoundland. 



Omnivorous like the Raven, our Crow feeds on fruits, seeds, and vege- 

 tables of almost every kind; it is equally fond of snakes, frogs, lizards, and 

 other small reptiles; it looks upon various species of worms, grubs and 

 insects as dainties; and if hard pressed by hunger, it will alight upon and 

 devour even putrid carrion. It is as fond of the eggs of other birds as is the 

 Cuckoo, and, like the Titmouse, it will, during a paroxysm of anger, break 

 in the skull of a weak or wounded bird. It delights in annoying its twilight 

 enemies the Owls, the Opossum, and the Racoon, and will even follow by 

 day a fox, a wolf, a panther, or in fact any other carnivorous beast, as if 

 anxious that man should destroy them for their mutual benefit. It plunders 

 the fields of their superabundance, and is blamed for so doing, but it is 

 seldom praised when it chases the thieving Hawk from the poultry-yard. 



The American Crow selects with uncommon care its breeding place. You 

 may find its nest in the interior of our most dismal swamps, or on the sides 

 of elevated and precipitous rocks, but almost always as much concealed from 

 the eye of man as possible. They breed in almost every portion of the 

 Union, from the Southern Cape of the Floridas to the extremities of Maine, 

 and probably as far westward as the Pacific Ocean. The period of nestling 

 varies from February to the beginning of June, according to the latitude of 

 the place. Its scarcity on the coast of Labrador, furnishes one of the reasons 

 that have induced me to believe it different from the Carrion Crow of 

 Europe; for there I met with several species of birds common to both 

 countries, which seldom enter the United States farther than the vicinity of 

 our most eastern boundaries. 



The nest, however, greatly resembles that of the European Crow, as much, 

 in fact, as that of the American Magpie resembles the nest of the European. 

 It is formed externally of dry sticks, interwoven with grasses, and is within 

 thickly plastered with mud or clay, and lined with fibrous roots and feathers. 

 The eggs are from four to six, of a pale greenish colour, spotted and clouded 

 with purplish-grey and brownish-green. In the Southern States they raise 

 two broods in the season, but to the eastward seldom more than one. Both 

 sexes incubate, and their parental care and mutual attachment are not sur- 

 passed by those of any other bird. Although the nests of this species often 



Vol. IV. 12 



