MAGPIES, JAYS, CROWS: WHITE-NECKED RAVEN 489 
in the sky, the Ravens, like the Turkey Vultures, were attracted by a 
line of meat-baited traps, going so far as to spring some of the traps 
and take the bait. And, in the Predatory Animal work of the 
Bureau of Biological Survey, the Ravens help locate the carcasses of 
domestic stock or game killed by the predatory animals. As Mr. 
Ligon puts it, they are “the best witnesses to the slaughter committed 
by such animals.” At Lake Burford in 1918 Doctor Wetmore saw 
a Raven light near his cabin and pick up and eat several white-footed 
mice which he had trapped and thrown away. The birds were common 
around the lake, nesting on the cliffs in the canyon below, and coming 
over to feed along the lakeshore and in the sage-brush (1920a, p. 401). 
In San Juan County, Mr. Birdseye found them abundant at Farm¬ 
ington, Fruitland, Liberty, Shiprock, and from below Shiprock to the 
Colorado line; also quite common at Blanco. In the Zuni Valley, in 
the Indian cornfields, he says he found “more or less skillfully made 
scarecrows,” but at Acoma, where numbers of Ravens were seen from 
our camp flying toward the cliffs below the pueblo to roost, one of the 
Indians questioned did not seem to think that they did much harm. 
In the winter, Mr. Ligon has found the Ravens going about in 
pairs and he thinks that they remain mated. At this season they come 
into towns and are far less shy than during the early summer. At 
Albuquerque one was seen by Mr. Loring perched on a cow's back, 
and at Doming they were found feeding in the streets acting as important^ 
scavengers, while a dozen seen in a hogyard, feeding with the hogs, 
allowed a person to pass within twenty feet of them without their 
flying away. Such is the pauperizing influence of contact with the 
white man! Let us forget it and think of the noble birds in their 
own proper environment—among the silent mesas and remote canyons 
of the great West. 
Additional Literature.—Harlow, R. C., Auk, XXXIX, 399-410, 1922 
(breeding habits). 
WHITE-NECKED RAVEN: Corvus cryptoleucus Couch 
Description. — Length: 18.7-21 inches, wing 13.1-14.2, tail 7.5-8.G, bill 2-2.3, 
depth of bill at base .8-.9, tarsus 2.2-2.5. Like the American Raven but decidedly 
smaller , with relatively shorter bill and longer nasal plumes. Adults: Glossy blacky 
upperparts (except hind neck) with a violet sheeu, underparts faintly glossed with 
bluish; feathers of neck and breast pure white for basal half. Young: Dull black, 
feathers of neck and breast white below the surface; feathers of throat short, not 
lanceolate, wings and tail as in adults; basal half of mandible light colored. 
Range. —Mainly in Lower Sonoran Zone in the southwestern United States and 
Mexico; from northern Colorado (formerly Nebraska and Kansas), through western 
Texas, New Mexico, and southern Arizona south to Michoacan, Guanajuato, and 
Tamaulipas. 
State Records.- —The southern half of New Mexico is included in the normal 
range of the White-necked Raven, and it has not been found by the Biological Survey 
