The New International Encyclopædia/Fish-Crow

FISH-CROW. A small crow (Corvus ossifragus), common along the eastern coast of the United States, from the Hudson River to Mexico. It is about sixteen inches in length, and the plumage is glossed with violet blue on the back, changing to a more greenish tinge on the head and lower parts. It rarely leaves the coast and margins of tidal rivers—where it feeds on small animals and carrion found on the beaches and mud flats, or dexterously seizes floating morsels—except to make excursions in the spring to neighboring woods and fields in search of birds' nests, of which it is a persistent robber. It ascends the Mississippi and other large rivers long distances. Its flight and cry are easily distinguished from those of the common crow, and it does not form great flocks and move regularly to and from the shore, as does that species. It nests in trees, preferring pines. A similar but somewhat smaller and blacker species (Corvus minutus) inhabits Cuba. Compare Crow.