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 THE CONDOR I Vol. II through the tree. alighted by the side of her ladyship and made a dainty, graceful bow, then they took wing and flew away together. The little widow's mournful cry was never heard again, neither did she come back to the rose at night. But often through ctober the warbling. with all its persuasive trills and twitters, was heard in the trees near the house. and the little N l'nget ,qound, in the vicinity of Tacoma, the Northwest Crow ( (3rvus caurints) can hardly be considered as more than a rather common resident throughout the )-eflr, and by my observfltions fire never to be fiund far away from the reach of salt water. This curious trait, t(gether with their fondness fir human society. makes them appear much more numer- ous in this locality than is really the To the uninitiated they might easily be con6und- cd with the Common or American Cnw ( americanus), hut in color they seldom everapproach the glossy black of their larger cousin, some ap- pearing nearly brown. They are alo very appre- ciably smaller, indeed the heing noted down as a Purple Grackle J. (2uiscalus quiscula) that had wandered a few thousand miles from home. He was on a floating log eating shell-fish and salt water insects, which seem to be their staple of diet with the addition of an occasional bug, berry orcaterpillar. Being hardly ever molested in any way, they seem almost ridiculously tame to au eastern ohserver, accustomed as he is to having a cnw take flight at sight of him. It may prove of interest widow was always close by. All win- ter the two remained together about the place, and in the spring began building on a limb that hung above our kitchen door. n seeing my glasses leveled that way, they deserted the half finished home, and tk up their abode half a I)lk away, where prying eyes could not discover every detail of family affairs. The Northwest Crow TACOMA, to mentiou here what impressed me most fircibly in contrasting the birds of the Atlantic Coast with those of the Puget Sound. This was the extreme tameness of the birds in the last rimned locality. The gulls, birds to be shot in the east only by the most careful stalk- ing, will scarcely take the trouble to move oht of the way of a hoat, and at the docks rest on the piles and ships that are being loaded, often within fif- teen or twenty feet of hundreds of peo- ple. So it is with the hawks, the Connn.n Crow and many others. To return to the orig- inal subject, in its nesting cattt'/nna differs so com- pletely frnn americanus tomake one think it more closely related to the Rook of Eunpe. (}n the Ta- coma Flats, at the head of Commencement Bay, is a small cluster of Siwash Indian houses, which a bonlered by  line ot scrubhy apple and cherry trees. In these trees six or seven pairs of this socialfie little crow band together in a colony during the nesting season. The nest is placed in a crotch at a dis- tahoe from ten to eighteen feet above the grimrid, the same one being made over and occupied each returning sea- SOil. (}n {)lie occasion I saw two occu- l)ied nests in an apple tree only twenty