8 



CORVIU.E. 



Nestlings are duller in colour than the adults, and have the base of the lower mandible, skin 

 around the gape, and the inside of the throat deep rose-pink ; iris \ery pale blue. Young birds 

 have the bases of the feathers on tlie upper parts dusky brown, the purplish gloss to the feathers 

 first appearing on the wings, back, upper tail-coverts and tail ; iris very light brown. 



Albinoes of this species are not unconmion. The Museum collection contains also a 

 specimen in very pale l'>rown plumage, and having all the feathers on the upper parts broadly 

 tipped with white. 



August, and the four following months, constitute the usual breeding season in Eastern 

 Australia, but nests containing fresh eggs have been found in New South Wales early in July, 

 and as late as tlie middle of January. Young birds lea\e the nest when about a month old. 



The nest figured on plate Ai was taken at Belmore, about eight miles from Sydney, on the 

 2nd September, i8g8, and was placed in the topmost forked branch of a Eucalyptus, at a height 

 of fully eighty feet from the ground. E.vternally it measures si.xteen inches in diameter, by 

 a depth of eleven inches, and internally eight inches in diameter by a depth of four inches. 



C3-en-u.s Sm^Er^EIS-ii^, Lessoti. 

 Strepera graculina. 



TIED CKOW-SlIKllvE. 



Corvus fjraculinus. White, Vcy. N. S.W., pi. opp. p. 2.51 (1790). 



Sirepera graculina, Gould, Bds. Austr., foL, Vol. II., pi. 42 (1848); id., Handbk. Bds. Austr., Vol. I., 

 p. 168 (1865); Sharpe, Cat. Bd.s. lirit. Mus., Vol. III., p. 57 (1877). 



Strepera crissalin, Gould, ^IS., Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. III., p. 57, pi. XII. (1877). 



Adult male — General colour black, diglitly 

 t/losfi/ oil the upper parts ; bases of the 

 prwiaries tvliite ; basal portion and tips of 

 tlie tail feathers and the under tail-coverts, 

 white; bill and feet black : iris yellow. Total 

 length in the fesh 19 incites, ivimj 10- 3, tail 8, 

 bill ..''4, tarsus 31. 



Adult fem.\le — Similar in plnniaije to tlie 

 male, but slvjhl.ly smaller. 



Distribution. — Queensland, New South 

 Wales, \'ictoria. Lord Howe Island. 



^^HE Pied Crow Shrike or "Black 

 Magpie " as it is more commonly 

 called, is dispersed throughout the coastal 

 districts and contiguous mountain ranges of 

 the greater portion of Eastern Australia, 

 and is also found on Lord Howe Island. 

 In New South Wales it is abundantly dis- 

 tributed over the Dividing Range, and 

 although it occurs in the open forest-lands 

 beyond its western slopes, I have never met 

 with it far inland, or in the clumps of belts 

 of timber growing on the plains. In the 

 PIED CROw-SHBiKE autunm I have observed it near Sydney in 



