(_Corvus ossifragus_) Crow family
_Length_--14 to 16 inches. About half as large again as the
robin.
_Male and Female_--Glossy black, with purplish-blue
reflections, generally greener underneath. Chin naked.
_Range_--Along Atlantic coast and that of the Gulf of Mexico,
northward to southern New England. Rare stragglers on the
Pacific coast.
_Migrations_--March or April. September. Summer resident only
at northern limit of range. Is found in Hudson River valley
about half-way to Albany.
Compared with the common crow, with which it is often confounded, the
fish crow is of much smaller, more slender build. Thus its flight is
less labored and more like a gull's, whose habit of catching fish that
may be swimming near the surface of the water it sometimes adopts.
Both Audubon and Wilson, who first made this species known, record its
habit of snatching food as it flies over the southern waters--a rare
practice at the north. Its plumage, too, differs slightly from the
common crow's in being a richer black everywhere, and particularly
underneath, where the "corn thief" is dull. But it is the difference
between the two crows' call-note that we chiefly depend upon to
distinguish these confusing cousins. To say that the fish crow says
_car-r-r_ instead of a loud, clear _caw_, means little until we have
had an opportunity to compare its hoarse, cracked voice with the other
bird's familiar call.
From the farmer's point of view, there is still another distinction:
the fish crow lets his crops alone. It contents itself with picking up
refuse on the shores of the sea or rivers not far inland; haunting the
neighborhood of fishermen's huts for the small fish discarded when the
seines are drawn, and treading out with its toes the shell-fish hidden
in the sand at low tide. When we see it in the fields it is usually
intent upon catching field-mice, grubs, and worms, with which it often
varies its fish diet. It is, however, the worst nest robber we have;
it probably destroys ten times as many eggs and young birds as its
larger cousin.
The fishermen have a tradition that this southern crow comes and goes
with the shad and herring--a saw which science unkindly disapproves.