ORNITHOLOGIST 
— AND — 
OOLOGIST. 
$1.00 per Joseph M. Wade, Editor and Publisher. Single Copy, 
Annum. Established, March, 1875. 10 Cents. 
VOL. VII. NORWICH, CONN., MAY, 1882. NO. 15. 
Clarke’s Crow. 
CAPT. CHAS. E. BENDIRE, D. S. A. 
CONCLUDED. 
In the Spring of ’77 I commenced my 
search on March 15th, and although I 
looked carefully and repeatedly over the 
entne ground gone over the year before, 
and over new localities as well, I failed to 
see a single bird, where on the previous 
season they had been found comjiaratively 
jilenty. Puzzled to account for their ab¬ 
sence I looked around for the possible 
cause of it, and knowing that these birds 
live almost exclusively on the seeds of the 
pine (in fact, all the specimens I have ever- 
dissected, shot mostly in the Winter 
months, however, had their crops filled 
with these seeds and nothing else), I nat¬ 
urally first examined the trees for their 
principal food supply and found that not 
a tree in a hundred bore ripe cones, and 
although there were many green ones I 
found none mature. This fact, then, ac¬ 
counted fully and plainly for their absence. 
During the next Winter, ’77-78, I found a 
few of these birds occupying their old 
haunts again, but not nearly as many as in 
previous seasons, and I commenced mv 
search as usual again in the latter part of 
Mai’ch. On April 4, 1878,1 foimd my first 
nest. It was jilaced near the extremity of 
a small limb, about forty feet from the 
gi-ound, very hard to get at, and in trying 
to pull the limb down somewhat with a 
rope so that it could be reached from a 
lower limb it broke and the eggs were 
thrown out of the nest. This also con¬ 
tained three eggs, and incubation, at tliis 
early date even, w’as very far advanced. 
On April 8th, ’78, I foimd another nest 
containing two eggs with good-sized em¬ 
bryos. This was likewise placed in a pine 
tree and near the extremity of one of the 
limbs, about sixteen feet from the ground. 
The only way this nest could l)e got at was 
by leaning a pole against the limbs of the 
tree and climbing to the nest by it, in 
which, after a good deal of labor and 
trouble, I finally succeeded. 
The type specimens obtained by me 
measured respectively 1.22x0.95 inches 
and 1.20x0.90 inches. The ground color 
of these eggs is a light grayish green and 
they are irregularly spotted and blotched 
with a deejier shade of gray, principally 
about the larger end. On the smaller egg 
the spots are finer and more evenly distnb- 
uted. The last two eggs obtained are 
somew-hat larger, measuring 1.26x0.95 
and 1.30x0.92 inches. Their markings 
although somewhat finer are about the same 
as in the tyiie specimens. They are elon¬ 
gated, oval in shape and considerably point¬ 
ed at the smaller end. The second set of 
eggs found by me, which, unfortunately, 
were broken, were more of a greenish 
ground color and also much heavier spot¬ 
ted. There is no doubt that there will be 
considerable variation found when a num¬ 
ber of sets of eggs of this bird are jilaced 
together for examination. That this species 
should only lay but three eggs to the set 
seems also rather strange, but as far as my 
personal observations go such is the fact. 
The nests, although looking quite small 
when viewed from below, are rather Imlky 
affairs after all when closely examined, their 
