SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 69 



as 1865, and afterwards defined by Dr. Sharpe, are noted, the difficulties of 

 identification vanish : " The Raven {Corone australis) is the larger bird, has 

 eyes white in the adult, wears conspicuous long feathers on the throat, and 

 lias the base of the feathers in the hind part of the neck and back of a dusty- 

 l)rown or sooty colour. The true Crow (^Corvus coronoides) has white eyes 

 likewise, but the base of the feathers is snow-white." Later on, however, 

 Campbell says : " As both have white eyes, the only sure method is by 

 handling the birds and deciding by the coloration of the feathers of the 

 neck and back. If they are brown or sooty it is a Raven, if white it is a 

 €row." 



In the latest handbook on our birds, (Messrs. Le Souef and Lucas), the 

 -authors define them as follows: — "The Crow [C ytvus coronoides) is "the 

 Hazel-eyed Crow ; the Raven {Corone australis) is the White-eyed Crow " ; 

 but they at the same time say, in describing the latter, " the iris white or 

 dark brown." One could understand ornithologists making two species 

 {though this is doubtful when they breed together), but to place them in 

 ■different genera seems to point to the fact that some genera exist in name 

 only. There is also a third species described under the name of Small- 

 billed Crow [Corvus bennetti), peculiar to South Australia and New South 

 Wales, allied to the Carrion Crow, but smaller. In these notes I propose 

 to follow the bushman and treat them all just as crows ; whether they 

 have white or brown eyes, or the down on the feathers of the back and neck 

 is dark-coloured or white, it makes no diiFerence to their habits. 



The value or otherwise of crows in Australia is one of those debatable 

 subjects that is a perennial source of correspondence from their admirers and 

 ■enemies in the stock and pastoral newspapers. At the monthly meetings of 

 the members of the Pastures Protection Boards, the business of paying a 

 standard bonus for crows' heads', and the price to be fixed per head, is 

 frequently a topic for heated discussion, while the following statement is 

 extracted from the Presidential address at an annual meeting of the Sheep 

 Breeders' Association in Sydney : "The crow is also again becoming very 

 troublesome, and how to deal with him is a question which divides many 

 minds, some being for wholesale destruction, others for preservation because 

 of his preying on vermin." 



Though there are large numbers of stockowners who consider that crows 

 are not as black as thpy look and are more useful than harmful, and take no 

 active measures against them, others go to the length of protecting them on 

 account of their value in clearing up carrion and assisting to keep in check 

 the caterpillar and grasshopper plagues. On the other hand, the majority of 

 the coastal, as well as some of the inland sheep-owners, wage unceasing 

 Tvarfare against the crow, and in the annual returns issued by the Stock 

 Branch of the New South Wales Department of Agriculture for the year 

 ending June, 1915, the sum of £2,862 2s. 3d. was given as the amount paid 

 by the officers of the Pastoral Boards of New South Wales for the heads of 

 109,344 crows. 



