The nest is generally placed on the top of some high tree or on the ledge of a cliff. It is made of sticks with an inner foundation of mud and warmly lined with wool, bents, rabbit fleck, and hair. The eggs, three to five in number, are very variable in markings, but except in size resemble those of the Raven. For a short time after the young are fledged they wander about in family parties, but they soon separate, and after August more than a pair are seldom seen together, a fact which will help to distinguish it at a distance from the Rook, who is nearly always gregarious. In general appearance this bird is very like the Rook, but it may be distinguished by the following characters. The bill is much stouter and broader and not so long and slender; its colour is black with a greenish gloss and not of a purplish blue, and the feathers have white bases, while those of the Rook are grey; the bristles and feathers at the base of the bill are never worn away as is always the case with Rooks after their second moult. Length 19·5 in.; wing 13 in. In this country it is generally distributed where not too strongly persecuted, becoming commoner in Scotland; but in Ireland it is very rare. THE HOODED CROW Corvus cornix, Linnæus The question as to whether this bird, which interbreeds freely with the Carrion Crow where their ranges overlap, is or is not a good species need not trouble us here. Suffice it to say that in England it occurs numerously as a regular winter immigrant, large numbers crossing the North Sea and arriving on our eastern coasts. Over the rest of our islands its distribution is somewhat capricious. In Wales and the western counties it is rare, whereas in Ireland and Scotland it is well distributed and resident. In habits it resembles the Carrion Crow but is more found on the sea-shore and estuaries than that species, though it is also found in the wooded districts. The back, shoulder, breast, and under parts are ashy grey, the rest of the body being black as in the Carrion Crow, of which in size and all other respects it is the exact counterpart. THE ROOK Corvus frugilegus, Linnæus There is no more delightful sound in early spring than the “caw” of the Rooks at their “rookeries,” as their breeding places are called. Year after year they return regularly to the same clump of trees, on the tops of which they build a fairly substantial nest of sticks, with an inner foundation of mud which is in turn warmly lined with roots, straw, and fine grass. The sites chosen for their homes are more frequently than not near human habitations or on clumps of trees near a highway, and exceptionally, they may choose pollards or low bushes, but as a rule the nests are never less than twenty feet from the ground. The eggs are bluish, with olive brown spots and blotches resembling those of the Carrion Crow, but smaller and more variable.