CROW ROOSTS. 11 



built on the same tree, yet half a dozen pairs often build within easy 

 hearing distance of each other, and if one be disturbed all are likely 

 to unite for common protection or protest. When the young are able 

 to fly, the parents accompany them, forming little family parties of six 

 or eight, and these soon associate with similar parties to form small 

 flocks of twenty to fifty. 



During migration, as already seen, Crows commonly travel in flocks 

 of varying size, and in autumn they often congregate in large num- 

 bers, but only during winter do they unite to roost in immense com- 

 munities. Many roosts are known where not less than 100,000 Crows 

 spend the night during winter, and at some single roosts the number 

 has been estimated to exceed 200,000. Most of these roosting places 

 have been used year after year in the same way — the same individual 

 trees for scores of years, and the same general locality probably for 

 centuries. 



Some of the roosts are in thick groves of pines or other evergreens, not 

 necessarily large trees, but such as afford protection during storms; 

 others are in deciduous trees (oaks, maples, poplars), while thick 

 growths of willow and alders are chosen occasionally, and on the Del- 

 aware River Crows have roosted among reeds or coarse grass and 

 brushwood overgrowing low islands. At a large roost on Arsenal 

 Island in the Mississippi, near St. Louis, Mo., Mr. Otto Widmann 

 found that u in ordinary weather the Crows roost on the trees of the 

 island. * * * When the weather becomes severe, some of the Crows 

 begin to pass the night on the sand bar, which at low water forms the 

 western edge of the island, and when the cold becomes extreme all the 

 Crows spend the night on the snow-covered bar or on the ice fields 

 bordering it." 



Whatever may be the nature of the place chosen, the Crows often 

 begin to gather in the neighborhood several hours before nightfall, but 

 do not actually settle upon the roost until it is almost dark. They 

 begin to leave the roost soon after daybreak, scattering over the sur- 

 rounding country to a distance of several miles. 



In the latitude of Washington, D. C, and St. Louis, Mo., Crows 

 begin to collect in some numbers at the roosts during the latter part of 

 September, but it is probable that part of these Crows are transients 

 which soon pass on to spend the winter farther south. About the last 

 of October the roosts assume larger proportions, and Crows become 

 very abundant in the surrounding country. By the end of November 

 or early in December, in ordinary seasons, the winter roosts have 

 attained their normal size, and it may be presumed the Crows occupy- 

 ing them are winter residents. All through the winter the numbers 

 vary from several causes, the most important of which apparently is 

 the prevalence of mild weather, during which many of the Crows form 

 smaller roosts here and there, at a distance. During heavy gales, too, 

 particularly if accompanied by rain or snow, belated detachments of 



