300 BULLETIN 186, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Family CORVIDAE 



CORVUS MACRORHYNCHOS LEVAILLANTII Lesson 



Bengalese Jungle Crow 



Corvus Levaillantii Lesson, Trait§ d'ornithologie, livr. 5, 1831 [= 1830 ?], p. 328 

 (Bengal). 



Corvus macrorhynchus, Gyldenstoipe, Kungl. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Handl., 1913, 

 p. 18 ([Mae Raem]) ; Journ. Nat. Hist. Soc. Siam, 1915, p. 164 (listed). 



Corvus macrorhynchus [partim], Gyldenstolpe, Kungl. Svenska Vet.-Akad. 

 Handl., 1916, p. 16 ("The whole of Siam" [partim]). 



Corvus coronoides hainanus [partim], Gyidenstolpe, Ibis, 1920, p. 448 ("Through- 

 out the whole country" [partim]). 



Corvus coronoides macrorhynchus, xm Schauensee, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila- 

 delphia, 1928, p. 555 (Chiang Mai). 



Corvas levaillanti andamanensis, Deiqnan, Journ. Siam Soc. Nat. Hist. Suppl., 

 1931, p. 134 (Chiang Mai, Doi Suthep). 



Corvus macrorhynchus macrorhynchus, Deignan, Journ. Siam Soc. Nat. Hist. 

 Suppl., 1936, p. 102 (Chiang Mai, Doi Suthep). — Greenway, Bull. Mus. Comp. 

 Zool., 1940, p. 167 (Doi Ang Ka). 



The only true crow of our provinces is common wherever man 

 has gone before to clear the forest and cultivate the land. It is, 

 accordingly, most numerous in towns and villages, but ventures also 

 into clearings in the evergreen and ascends the mountains to as high 

 an elevation as there are inhabited hai, on Doi Suthep reaching 

 3,300 feet, on Doi Ang Ka, 4,400 feet. 



At Chiang Mai it was quite fearless in the immediate vicinity of 

 monasteries and dwellings but decidedly wild elsewhere, and for this 

 reason I seldom found it expedient to take a specimen. It occurs 

 in much greater numbers in the towns of Phrae and Nan, where it 

 was said to be highly destructive to fruit and young poultry, than 

 at Chiang Mai, where it was looked upon with indifference. Its harsh 

 hha-a-a or khd-a-d is constantly to be heard at roadside markets, 

 where it gathers refuse from the ground, and in fruiting fig trees 

 about the monasteries, but it will also eat carrion or whatever else 

 is available. While somewhat gregarious at any season, it is espe- 

 cially so during the cold weather when all the crows in a given 

 district spend the night at a common roost, which may be many miles 

 from the feeding grounds of the day ; I have more than once followed 

 small roost-bound groups from Chiang Mai as far as Mae Rim and 

 at that point was obviously still miles away from the forest area 

 then being used for the purpose. 



An adult female had the irides brown ; the bill, feet, toes, and claws 

 black. 



Our crow has the plumage wholly black, the underparts glossed 

 with steel blue, the upperparts with steel violet. 



