130 
FISII-CROW. 
harsh jarring of a door. These the Crow now before us would fre- 
quently seize with his claws, as he flew along the surface, and retire to 
the suuimit of a dead tree to enjoy his repast. ' Here I also observed 
him a pretty constant attendant at the pens, where the coavs were 
usually milked, and much less shy, less suspicious, and more solitaryj 
than the common Crow. In the county of Cape May, New Jersey, I 
again met with these Crows, particularly along Egg Harbor river ; and 
latterly on the Schuylkill and Delaware, near Philadelphia, during the 
season of shad and herrinii fishine;, viz., from the middle of March till the 
beginning of June. A small party of these Crows, during this period, 
regularly passed Bartram's gardens, to the high woods, to roost, every 
evening a little before sunset, and as regularly returned at or before 
sunrise every morning, directing their course towards the river. Tlie 
fishermen along these rivers also inform me, tha.t they have particularly 
remarked this Crow, by his croaking voice, and his fondness for fish ; 
almost always hovering about their fisliing places, to glean up the re- 
fuse. Of their manner of breeding I can only say, that they separate 
into jiairs, and build in tall trees, near the sea or river shore ; one of 
their nests having been built tliis season in a piece of tall woods, near 
Mr. Beasley's, at Great Egg Harbor. The male of this nest furnished me 
with the figure in the plate, which was drawn of full size, and afterwards 
reduced to one-third the size of life, to correspond with the rest of the 
figures in the same plate. From the circumstance of six or seven being 
usually seen here together, in the month of July, it is probable that 
they have at least four or five young at a time. 
I can find no description of this species by any former writer. Mr. 
Bartram mentions a bird of this tribe, which he calls the Great Sea- 
side Croiv ; but the present species is considerably inferior in size to 
the common Crow ; and having myself seen and examined it in so many, 
and remotely situated, parts of the country, and found it in all these 
places alike, I have no hesitation in pronouncing it to be a new and 
hitherto undescribed species. 
The Fish-Crow is sixteen inches long, and thirty-three in extent ; 
black all over, with reflections of steel-blue and purple ; the chin is bare 
of feathers around the base of the lower mandible;* upper mandible 
notched near the tip, the edges of both turned inwards about the middle ; 
eye very small, placed near the corner of the mouth, and of a dark hazel 
color ; recumbent hairs or bristles large and long ; ear feathers promi- 
nent ; first primary little more than half the length of the second, fourth 
* This must have been an accidental circumstance, as I have Seen specimens, the 
chin of which was entirely covered. In the month of April, I shot a fine male, on 
the Delaware, seventeen inches long, thirty-three broad. The chin covered. This 
epecies is greatly infested with lice, insomuch that when one handles them, one gets 
covered with these disagreeable vermin. — G. Ord. 
