CORVLS. / 



that were in each instance completely covered with a layer of thin sticks, from two to three 

 inches in length. The Pink-eared Duck (Malacorhynchus inembranaceus), also, when breeding 

 in hollow limbs of trees, plucks only a little down from its breast to intermingle with its eggs. 

 Frequently, however, it takes possession of the disused nest of another waterfowl which is built in 

 an exposed situation, when it completely envelops its eggs in another nest placed on top, and formed 

 entirely of down. Poultry-keepers in the country, whose stock has the run of the bush, dislike the 

 Raven, for it carries off young chickens, and will \enture close to out-buildings to steal eggs. 



For the purposes of breeding the Raven readily adapts itself to its environment, resorting 

 equally to the tall Eucalypti, especially when in the neighbourhood of cities, as to low trees 

 in unfrequented situations. Inland these birds build their nests in companies in the low timber 

 dotted about the plains, or in Pine ridges. A favourite site is in the crown of a Pine [Frenela j^.), but 

 they are sometimes constructed in low Ho^ hushes {Dodonea lobulaia,V.\M.), or in the top 

 of a Salt-bush (Atrip/ex sp.) within a few feet of the ground. Near the coast, in Victoria, they 

 are frequently built in low gum or tea-trees. About the outlying suburbs of Sydney, the nests 

 of this species are not common and are usually built in the topmost branches of a Eucalyptus or 

 Angophota at a height varying from fifty to one hundred feet from the ground. The nest, which 

 is generally built in an upright fork, is a large bowl-shaped structure, the foundation being 

 formed of thick sticks interlaced together, the walls of it being built of slightly finer material, 

 and thickly lined inside with bark fibre, wool, fur, or hair. An average nest measures externally 

 seventeen inches in diameter by tL-n and a half inches in depth, and the bowl-like cavity eight 

 inches and a half in diameter by tour inches in depth. The eggs are four or five, and occasionally 

 six in number for a sitting. In shape they vary from elongate oval to rounded oval, some 

 specimens being considerably lengthened and pointed at the smaller end, the shell being close- 

 grained and its surface smooth and as a rule slightly lustrous. The ground colour varies from 

 dark pea-green and dull greenish-grey to a light bluish-green and pale bluish white. Typically 

 the ground colour is of a light shade of green, which is blotched, spotted, and freckled with 

 blackish-brown, wood-brown, or light umber, the markings being larger on the thicker end. 

 Others have very fine streaks and scratches of wood-brown or olive-brown, uniformly distributed 

 o\-er the shell, and in some instances a dark cap of the same colour, on the larger end. Some 

 specimens are entirely blotched, or spotted uniformlv all over the surface of the shell ; others 

 have very fine indistinct fleecy streaks or scratches, or have the smaller end devoid of markings, 

 and the larger end finely dusted or peppered with different shades of brown. An unusual 

 variety has a very pale bluish-white ground colour, and a cluster of well defined rich umber- 

 brown markings on the larger end. Occasionally eggs are found of a uniform colour, and 

 entirely free from markings. .V set of four taken at Yandembah, on the i6th September, 1S90, 

 measures as follows: — (A), 2-03 x 1-27 inches; (B),i-85 x i-27inches; (C),r9i x 1-28 inches; (D), 

 i-8i X 1-28 inches. A set of five taken by Mr. George Savidge on the i8th September, 1897, at 

 Copmanhurst, on the Clarence River, measure — length (.\), i'64x i-iS inches; (B), 1-65 x ri8 

 inches; (C), 1-62 x i-i6 inches; (D), 1-69 x i-i8 inches; (E), i-6x 1-2 inches. 



Occasionally this species constructs its nest upon the ground, but one of the most curious 

 sites I have known a bird to select for a nesting place was found by the late Mr. K. H. 

 Bennett. On Yandembah Station, in the Lachlan District, where Corone australis is exceedingly 

 numerous, he found one of their nests containing young ones on the i8th October, 1S90, placed 

 inside the skeleton of a sheep, lying on the open plain. The situation was rendered the more 

 peculiar from the fact that there were numbers of trees, in which these birds used to build, less 

 than a quarter of a mile away. During the previous season another pair constructed their nest 

 in the drum of a whim close to the homestead, and from which Mr. Bennett took four eggs. On 

 two occasions in 1889-90, on Yandembah Station, he also found the mud nests of the White-winged 

 Chough, with eggs, constructed inside the deserted nests of the Raven, and has also taken from 

 similar abandoned tenements, the eggs of the Xankeen Kestrel and Black Duck. 



