BIRDS 155 



HOODED CROW. 



Corvus comix, L. 



When we remember the astonishing numbers of Hooded 

 Crows which annually arrive upon the north-eastern coasts of 

 England, and that this bird breeds commonly in the Isle of 

 Man, it becomes a little surprising that it is scarce throughout 

 Lakeland. Dr. Heysharn knew it only as an occasional visitant 

 to Cumberland, nor did Dr. Gough ever meet with a specimen 

 in Westmorland until November 1842. Mr. Hutchinson says 

 that it is as rarely seen near Kendal now as it was fifty 

 years ago. Mr. Bell showed me an example killed near 

 Milnthorpe as a rare bird. Mr. Eawson has never seen 

 the Hooded Crow in Westmorland. Mr. Murray assures me 

 that the Hoodie is very seldom procured near Carnforth. It 

 is evident that no change has taken place in its habits during 

 the last hundred years, but that, as now, so in the elder 

 Heysham's day, it appeared sporadically in different parts of 

 Lakeland in early winter; never arriving in flocks, but appear- 

 ing singly or in couples and trios. In recording the presence of 

 a Hooded Crow [probably a straggler from the Isle of Man] at 

 St. Bees, on May 24, 1832, <G[eorge] W[heatley] ' finds 

 occasion to remark that this species 'is said to have been 

 common in these parts, which it may have been formerly, but 

 it is not so now ; for I remember having seen but three or four ; 

 one of them several years ago, near the large rookery at Isell 

 Hall, a seat of Sir Wilfred Lawson, on the banks of the 

 Derwent.' 1 Though almost exclusively met with during the 

 winter season, a Hooded Crow was sent to me from Silloth as 

 early as the month of September in 1884. 



ROOK. 



Corvus frugilegus, L. 

 In spite of the sentiment which attaches to the Rook in 

 virtue of the homely associations of a bird which nests 

 gregariously around our country-houses, which meets the wild- 

 fowler as an old friend on the sands of Morecambe Bay or the 

 1 Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. vi. p. 200. 



