of birds that had lost their previous sets, or from aged birds whose pro¬ 
ductive powers are waning. 
In the foregoing summary, no account has been taken of abnormalities 
or monstrocities. The latter are by no means common, and with the 
species under consideration, very rare indeed. The “runt" egg which 
comes under this head, has been attributed to the exhaustion of the pro¬ 
ductive organs of the female, after producing an unusually large number of 
eggs, the final egg being not only unnaturally small, but infertile as well. 
The smallest egg of this species on record was taken by Mr. I. C. Green, 
Amherst, Mass., with three eggs of the normal size. It contained no 
yolk, and measures /. rgx.gj, which is somewhat smaller than the egg of 
a Saw-whet Owl 
Contour —Cones, in his Birds of the .Yorthwest, says : “In measur¬ 
ing many hundred eggs I have noticed that the variation, however great, 
is less in absolute bulk than in contour." In view of this it would appear 
to me that the true and most accurate method, were it practicable, of 
comparing a large series of eggs with that of another, would be to ascer¬ 
tain the capacity of each and every shell of the species. Whether the 
result would justify the extra time, risk, and skill employed, I am unable 
to say The eggs of the Crow are usually ovate, often running from short 
ovate to elongate ovate, and less often from short ovate to ovate, in a 
clutch Cylindrical ovate and ovate pyriform are very rarely met with in 
eggs of this species, and oval and spherical only in abnormal specimens, 
which are frequently if not always infertile. In a set of two eggs taken 
by Mr. J C. Brown, Carthage, Mo., May i. 1893, one egg is of the usual 
size and shape, the other is almost spherical, measuring 1.43 x / v ?<V. To 
the eye, this egg would appear perfectly round This set is now in the 
collection of Mr. f. Warren Jacobs. 
Color. In my oological collection, I have a series of sets of the 
American Crow, from Connecticut, Northern New York, Southern Michi¬ 
gan. Minnesota and Manitoba, nearly all of which can be readily sepa¬ 
rated from my North Carolina.> California, Kansas, and Pennsylvania 
series by reason of their very dark ground color or heavy markings. The 
Northern eggs, with some exceptions, exhibit a ground of French- bice- 
chromium- or pea-green, variously spotted and blotched. For Pennsyl¬ 
vania a very light malachite-, chromium- or glaucous-green, are the usual 
colors, with an occasional set or single of a bice- French- or pea- 
green. or more often of an indescribable greenish-grey or faded nile-blue. 
Hggs from more Southern sections appear even lighter and with fewer 
dark sets. I have never yet found the “ sea green ” ground color sir 
often given in the standard works as the typical color of the egg. 
