It is when the Crow children are hatched that Nature begins to groan. It is then that birds’ eggs are quoted by the crate; and beetles by the hecatomb are sacrificed daily in a vain effort to satisfy the Gargantuan appetites of these young ebons. I once had the misfortune to pitch camp in a grove of willows which contained a nestful of Crows. The old birds never forgave me, but upbraided me in bitter language from early morn till dewy eve. The youngsters also suffered somewhat, I fear, for as often as a parent bird approached, cawing in a curiously muffled voice, choked with food, and detected me outside the tent, it swallowed its burden without compunction, in order that it might the more forcibly berate me. If the male happened to discover my out-of-doorness in the absence of his mate, he would rush at her when she hove in sight, in an officious, blustering way, and shout, “Look out there! Keep away! The Rhino is on the rampage again!” I learned, also, to recognize the appearance of hawks in the offing. At the first sign the Crow, presumably the male, begins to roll out objurgatory gutturals as he hurries forward to meet the intruder. His utterances, freely translated, run somewhat as follows: “That blank, blank Swainson Hawk! I thought I told him to keep away from here. Arrah, there, you slab-sided son of an owl! What are ye doing here? Git out o’ this! (Biff! Biff!) Git, I tell ye! (Biff!) If ever I set eyes on ye again, I’ll feed ye to the coyotes. Git, now!” And all this without the slightest probability that the poor hawk would molest the hideous young pickaninnies if he did discover them. For when was a self-respecting hawk so lost to decency as to be willing to “eat crow”? No. 4. NORTHWEST CROW. A. O. U. No. 489. Corvus brachyrhynchos caurinus (Baird). Synonyms.—Fish Crow. Western Fish Crow. Northwest Fish Crow. Puget Sound Crow. Tidewater Crow. Description.—Similar to _C. b. hesperis_, but decidedly smaller, with shorter tarsus and relatively smaller feet. Length 15.00-17.00; wing 11.00 (280); tail 6.00 (158); bill 1.80 (46); tarsus 1.95 (50). Recognition Marks.—An undersized Crow. Voice hoarse and flat as compared with that of the Western Crow. Haunts beaches and sea-girt rocks. Nesting.—_Nest_: a compact mass of twigs and bark-strips with occasionally a foundation of mud; lined carefully with fine bark-strips and hair; 4.00 deep and 7.00 across inside; placed 10-20 feet high in orchard or evergreen trees, sometimes in loose colony fashion. _Eggs_: 4 or 5, indistinguishable in color from those of the Common Crow, but averaging smaller. A typical set averages 1.56 × 1.08 (39.6 × 27.4). _Season_: April 15-June 1; one brood. General Range.—American coasts of the North Pacific Ocean and its estuaries from Olympia and the mouth of the Columbia River north at least to the Alaskan peninsula.