692 Crow Roosts and Roosting Crows. [August, — K 
half. The eastern area of this circle, with the exception of more 
fertile portions of West and North Jersey, is as notably devoid of 
them by day as it is infested by them at night. Their most ex- 
tensive breeding grounds in New Jersey are well-nigh deserted 
during severe weather. ; 
The popular local notion that crows all “go to Jersey to roost” 
and return to Pennsylvania to forage, while far from correct, has | 
more truth in it than the average Jerseyman will admit. i 
The pine barrens and swamps of the interior afford but scant : 
subsistence in winter, though providing ample summer accommo- i 
dation to thousands, while on the other hand, the cultivated and 
more fertile portions of Delaware, Maryland, East Pennsylvania 
and West Jersey present an abundant winter supply of food- 
stuffs, 
Another important factor in their choice of this district as a 
winter resort can best be understood by reference to the map, 
where it will be seen that nowhere on the Atlantic coast are the p 
geographical conditions, both physical and climatic, more favor- í 
able to a supply of animal and vegetable food than in the four : 
southernmost Middle States, whose wealth of bays, rivers, creeks 
_ and estuaries is unsurpassed in the United States. 
_ The main object of this paper shall be to give a description of 
their nightly rendezvous, or “ roosts,” at this season of yeu in 
the afore-mentioned districts, adding thereto such deductions as 
are presented by a study of the history of such places, together 
with observations respecting the habits of crows before and after 
assembling at their roosting grounds. 
_It should be borne in mind by those unacquainted with the 
locality described, that it not only is preéminently a good feeding 
ground, but that it also furnishes, in the evergreen forests which 
skirt the shores of Delaware and Chesapeake bays and oe 
numberless tributaries, a no less suitable shelter wherein to pass 
the night, | ti 
a The literature of crow roosts is scant, modern ornitholog — 
having virtually kept silence respecting this interesting phat 9 
d-life, 
yee 
_ Wilson’s description is probably the first published one avail- — 
able. It is as follows: © ere, 
“The most noted crow roost with which I am acquainted, 
he in his American Ornithology, “is near New Castle, 0n A 
