10 CORVID.F.. 



swallowed wholesale. Before the maize grains begin to harden, this incorrigible thief, with its 

 strong claws and powerful mandibles, strips back the tough sheathing of the cob. and often leaves 

 not one solitary grain. If driven off it soon sneaks quietly back in the most impudent manner, 

 though, after a little shooting, it becomes so warv that it is difficult to get a shot. It would be 

 a good thing if this pest could be eradicated, for it would be possible to keep it down in any 

 particular district if the gardeners therein would cordially combine for the purpose. I have been 

 told that this bird will eat flesh, and that numbers are sometimes destroyed by poisoning a 

 bullock's head and placing it in a tree out of tlie reach of dogs. It strikes me that it might be 

 easily taken in a wire fish-trap baited with fruit, for if trees are netted, and a small opening 

 accidentally left, it will force itself through, which it is unable to find quickly when disturbed, 

 and by this means I had the satisfaction during the last fruit season of beating several of the 

 marauders to death. Twine nets, unless too hea\y for convenient use, are not of sufficient pro- 

 tection, for on several occasions the birds have torn their wav through them in order to get at 

 the protected fruit." 



The nest is a large open structure, rather roughly formed externallv of sticks and twigs: the 

 inside, which is neatly rounded and cup-shaped, being lined usually with fibrous roots, at other 

 times with coarse dried grasses, or fibrous strips of bark. An average nest measures externally 

 fourteen inches in diameter bv five inches and a half in depth; the inner cup seven inches in 

 diameter by three inches in depth. It is usually built in an upright or leaning fork of a 

 Eucalyptus, at a height varying from twenty to sixty feet from the ground. Eggs three in 

 number for a sitting, varying from o\al to elongate oval, the shell being close-grained, and its 

 surface smooth, dull, and almost lustreless. In ground colour they vary from pale brown to pale 

 \inous-brown, which is faintly freckled, blotched, or streaked with darker and different shades 

 of the ground colour, the markings predominating as a rule on the thicker end, where in some 

 specimens they are partially confluent and form an ill-defined cap or zone. .\ set of three, 

 taken by ]\Ir. George Savidge in the Cangai scrub, at the head-waters of the Clarence River, an 

 the i6th October, 1898, measures as follows; — Length (A) i-^^ x 1 inch; (B) 1-53 x i-i2 inch; 

 (C) 1-52 X i-ii inch. Another set of three measures: — (.\) r6 x -12 inch; (B) f62 x rii inch; 

 (C) 1-62 X i-i4_ inch. T'igure 12 on Plate Bi is from the former set. 



Young birds resemble the adults, but are duller in colour on the upper parts, the secondaries 

 and greater wing-coverts have narrow whitish tips, and the bases of the primary-coxerts are 

 dull white; all the feathers on the throat, breast, and abdomen are edged or tipped with brown. 



September and the four following months constitute the usual breeding season of this species. 



Mr. Savidge informs me that about Copmanhurst, on the Upper Clarence River, the Pied 

 Crow-shrike has been observed feeding the young of the Channel-billed Cuckoo ( Scythrops 

 novce-hollandicr). Mr. Savidge has also several times seen it chasing the latter species away. 



Strepera arguta. 



HILL iROW-SHRIKE. 

 Strepera aryufa, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1846, p. 19 ; id., Bds. Austr., fol. Vol. II., pi. 44 (1848); 

 id., Handbk. Bds. Austr., Vol. I., p. 171 (186.")) : Sliarpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. III., 

 p. 59 (1877). 

 Adijlt male — General colour blackish-broivn, with ilarker margins to the feathers of the back, 

 scapulars, rump, and upper tail-coverts; primaries black, the basal half of their inner webs white, 

 and having iiarroiv indistinct brownish-white tips ; tail blackish-brown, all but the two central 

 feathers broadly tipped with white ; under tail-coverts white ; bill and legs black ; iris yellow. Total 

 length 21 inches, wing IPS, tail 10, bill ..'S, tarsus ..'S. 



Adult TEMALK — Similar in plumage to the male, but slightly smaller. 

 Distribution. — Tasmania. 



