132 
CORVID.E. 
tame bird and laid down without fracture. The Hooded Crow 
is knoAvn all over Scotland as a remorseless slaughterer of 
young birds, as well as an incorrigible egg stealer. Besides its 
depredations among the poultry and their eggs, it visits the 
marshes in quest of the eggs of Snipe and wild Duck, and 
diligently searches the moors for the nest of the Golden Plover, 
and is repaid for its labour by many an egg and young bird. 
On a clear summer’s evening I have sat upon the hills by the 
half-hour at a time, watching pairs of these cold-blooded robbers 
carrying away their prey, and have heard the long wailing 
whistle of the parent birds sounding so like the words, Oh, 
dear I Oh, de-ear !” that it became quite painful to listen. 
Sometimes, in sly quiet corners among the rocks, I have found 
scores of empty shells of sea birds’ eggs, brought there by 
Hooded Crows. The species recognised have always been Cor- 
morant, Shag, Puffin, and Kittiwake ; though by what means the 
Puffin’s eggs could have been abstracted from the burrows is a 
mystery. These, from their small size, might be carried whole 
in the bill, but the eggs of the larger Gulls are devoured upon 
the spot, as the fowlers assure me. Every egg had a large 
hole in the side, but so little other damage is done that I 
have often picked out specimens for my collection from the 
accumulation of shells in a Hoodie’s feeding-place. It is 
scarcely possible that a Hooded Crow can carry in its bill a 
broader egg than that of the Cormorant or Puffin. I have often 
given a common fowl’s egg, of precisely the same breadth as 
the egg of the two species last mentioned, to a tame Hooded 
Crow, and then watched the bird’s proceedings. Any easily 
portable article of food — even such as a Tern’s or a Einged 
Plover’s egg — was invariably carried away and hidden; but 
with the fowl’s egg tne case was different. The bird would 
make repeated attempts to grasp it with the bill, but always 
ineffectually, the egg slipping and rolling about in a most pro- 
voking manner. At last the Crow would knock a hole in the 
side of the egg and suck up part of the contents, and ^vould 
then grasp one of the edges with its bill and carry the rest off 
