218 
OMNIVOROUS BIRDS. 
who, with the nest and its owners, were turned about by every 
change of the wind. They returned and continued to refit the nest 
for 10 successive years, until the taking down of the spire put an end 
to their aerial castle. 
COLUMBIAN CROW. 
( Corvus columbianus , Wilson, iii. p. 29. pi. 20. fig. 2. Philad. Mu- 
seum. No. 1371.) j 
Sp. Charact. — Brownish-white ; wings, and 2 middle tail feathers 
bluish shining black; the secondaries white at the summits; 
outer tail feathers white. 
Of the habits of this curious small species nothing more 
is known, than that its discoverers, Lewis and Clarke 
and their party, met with it abundantly on the shores of 
the Columbia river, in Northwestern America, and that 
they were noisy and gregarious like the common species, 
for which some of the party mistook them. From its 
formidable claws, and its resorting to the banks of rivers 
and the sea-coast, it probably feeds on fish. 
The length of this Crow, of which this was the only specimen 
brought, was 13 inches. The 2 middle tail-feathers, and the interi- 
or vanes of the next, except at the tip, are black, and, as well as the 
wings, glossed with steel blue. The tail rounded, and about the 
same length with the folded wings ; the 2 middle tail-feathers are 
somewhat shorter than the adjoining. Vent white. The claws black 
and large. Bill dark horn-color. 
Subgenus. — Pica. [Magpies.) 
The feathers of the head not erectile. The tail very long and 
wedge-shaped. The general color of these birds is black and white, 
sometimes variegated, also wholly dark. 
They advance by leaps instead of steps ; and have usually a low 
and short flight. 
