22 
ficient data to back them up. It is evident to all, that where a species has 
as wide a breeding range as Corvus americanus, the number of eggs 
in a set must naturally vary according to locality and environment. 
Here Nature shows her wisdom, or rather the guiding hand of the Infinite 
Creator is here most strikingly shown. In the extreme northern and north¬ 
western breeding range of this species, where competition in the struggle 
for proper and suitable food is freer, the birds are enabled to raise 
a larger brood than those of the South, where competition is much greater. 
, . . * 
Another condition exists in the North-east, which is scarcely less power¬ 
ful than the foregoing — that of persecution. While the bird may be as 
free from competition of its class as its Western brethren, the persecution 
or competition with man exists in so great a degree as to reduce its feed¬ 
ing ground materially, possibly one-half. Probably no fiercer warfare is 
waged against this sjrecies anv-where in the country than in New York 
and New England. While the maximum number of eggs in a set is as 
great as or greater than that of the Central and Western states, the av¬ 
erage falls below the latter. It is extremely rare to find more than five 
eggs in a set south of the jfeth parallel of latitude. Out of 320 sets, 
known to be complete, collected in the Humid Province, those taken 
south of the 36th parallel, from the Carolinian and Austroriparian faunal 
areas, 50 per cent, are in sets of five eggs each, no larger sets being re¬ 
ported. In the Middle and Eastern states, 54 per cent, are in sets of five 
or larger. In the Western states (only those included in the Humid 
Province are given), 73 per cent, are in sets of five or larger. The more 
robust the bird, the greater the abundance of food and relative free¬ 
ness from persistent persecution, are without doubt conducive to the 
increase in the number of eggs in a set, as this species is not known to 
lay more than one clutch in a season, unless the first has been disturbed 
or destroyed in some manner. 
The largest number of eggs in one nest has been reported from Iowa 
a '‘set” of eight eggs But the fact that four of these eggs were darker, 
larger, and further advanced in incubation than the remaining four, evi¬ 
dently proves it to be a double set, although but one pair of birds was 
observed about the nest. A number of sets of seven eggs are without 
doubt double sets also. The difference in coloration and incubation 
proving them to be such That seven eggs are not sometimes deposited 
in a clutch by a single female. I am not prepared to assert ; but consider¬ 
ing the abundance of the species, I do consider such sets extremely rare. 
I have never found one, although I have looked into several hundred 
nests the pasts ten years Mr C. W. Crandall, Woodside, Queen’s 
County. X Y . has been more fortuate. In answer to an inquiry regard- 
