THE GREY CROW. 
311 
adds : — “ There is a record, however, of its having done so near 
Scarborough, on two or three occasions.” 
From what has been written on the grey crow, as a bird of Great 
Britain, it would appear to be more common in Ireland generally, 
than in England, or on the mainland of Scotland.* Mr. Mac- 
gillivray remarks, that it “is very abundant in the Hebrides, the 
Shetland, and Orkney islands,” vol. i. p. 531. I have observed 
the species to be so, on the islands off the coast of Ireland ; where 
rocks are necessarily its breeding places. Many build in the pre- 
cipitous marine cliffs of the Gobbins, outside the northern entrance 
to Belfast bay, as numbers of jackdaws also do ; together with the 
raven and the chough. These cliffs are the haunt of innumerable 
sea-fowl. The sea-shore or its vicinity is the favourite resort of this 
bird — which may occasionally be seen mingled with Grallatores 
and gulls, at the edge of the in-coming waves at Belfast bayt — 
but it is likewise resident in far inland localities. SirWm. Jardine 
states, that according to his observation, rocks are preferred as a 
nesting-place. Mr. Macgillivray (vol. i. p. 533) seems to 
doubt its building at all in trees ; but around Belfast, trees in the 
immediate vicinity of its “ beat ” are preferred to rocks a little 
more distant, where the raven and jackdaw find a home. In 
some very tall and fine beech trees, on a lawn bordering the bay, 
several pairs of these birds have built for many years, and two or 
three of their nests occasionally appearing in a single tree, suggest 
the idea of an infant rookery. When, however, more nests than 
* With respect to Swansea in Wales, we learn the following from Mr. Dillwyn’s 
Fauna and Flora of that locality : — “Hooded crow never common in this neighbour- 
hood ; about forty years ago I watched a pair, which throughout the winter were 
always to he seen on the sea-shore. * * * They disappeared in the spring.” 
p. 6. (1848.) 
f Mr. Poole remarks : — “ On the 10th of August, I saw these birds flocking along 
the course of the Elbe, between Hamburgh and Magdehurgh. Large numbers were 
distributed along the shores in company with gulls, whose habits they seemed to 
imitate, for they frequently dipped down to the water while on wing, and stretched out 
their feet to support themselves, while they picked up whatever morsel had attracted 
their attention. In the mountains of Silesia they endure the utmost severity of the 
winter to gaiu a scanty livelihood in the vicinity of towns, into the centre of which 
they sometimes venture, or on hills which face the south, and from whose declivity the 
snow has consequently been partially dissolved before the weak and glittering rays of 
the sun. They flock together in considerable numbers, perhaps as many as 100 or 150 
in a troop.” 
