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EMIGRATION THROUGH NORFOLK OF THE ROOK 
AND GREY CROW. 
By J. H. Gurney, F.Z.S. 
THE spring emigration of the Corvide from our shores has 
long attracted attention in Norfolk, because it is always noticed. 
The reason for this is that the passage takes place almost 
entirely in the daytime, apparently not beginning until sunrise. 
These annual March flights of the Grey or Hooded Crow (Corvus 
cornix) and the Rook (C. frugilegus) were observed by, and 
their meaning well known to such careful men as the Rev. 
EK. W. Dowell, W. R. Fisher, my father, and others in this 
county, nearly seventy years ago, and may have been detected 
long before that by other naturalists whose names are forgotten. 
Regularly as March comes round does this striking passage 
of birds present itself. Sometimes it is so gradual as to attract 
little attention, sometimes there are days when continuous 
flocks are travelling overhead, in perfect silence, for hours at a 
time. Where do they all come from? There was a memor- 
able passage in March, 1886, to which I think attention was 
drawn at the time (c¢. ‘ Zoologist,’ x. p. 391). From the 20th 
to the 29th of that month flocks of Rooks were constantly in 
view, and the number which travelled through Norfolk, along 
the coast, more particularly between Cromer and Lowesioft, 
was enormous—all apparently going in a south-east or southerly 
direction. Rooks and Grey Crows do not often mingle in 
the same flock, though both may be visible in the air at the 
same time, but a company of Rooks frequently has an ad- 
mixture of Jackdaws in it. Carrion-Crows and Ravens have 
also been reported on the Norfolk coast, but I have never 
identified either in the neighbourhood of Cromer. 
The height at which these emigrating Crows and Rooks and 
Jackdaws generally fly, when preparing to quit the coast of 
Norfolk, is from two to three hundred yards, but at the same 
