Vol. XIX 

 iqjo 



] MMniLW^. What are Australian Peiyels ? 297 



actly what I had previously recorded, that Procellaria conspicillala 

 and Diomcdea ciihninata were not procured by Gould in Austra- 

 lian waters. It will be remembered that Tom Carter, in The Emu 

 vol. xii., page 192, 1913, has also recorded that from 900 miles 

 west of Albany, Western Australia, to 800 miles east of Durl)an, 

 South Africa, he observed numbers of Procellaria aequinodialis 

 with a white chin spot, but " no specimen was seen with any 

 xvhite markings above the beak or on the face." The italics are 

 Carter's. 



Also, in his very valuable paper in The Emu, vol. xv., pp. 243 

 et seq., 1916, Ferguson does not record Diomedea culminata (Gould) 

 from AustraUan waters at all, though confirming the records 

 otherwise given by Gould and I\Iacgillivray for other Australian 

 Albatrosses. 



As regards " Australian Seas," and the point raised Ijy Alex- 

 ander, I do not see how half-way between the nearest land can 

 be taken in connection with Africa and the Antarctic, as these 

 places are so far away. Nevertheless, it would certainly deter- 

 mine the range of the species if the limits were accepted, with 

 the provaso that only specimens actually procured be accepted. 

 Sight records of Petrels miles away from land would be very 

 dangerous. 



Australian Crows. 



Bv (iki'CiuKv M. Mathews, F.R.S.E. 



In The Emu, vol. xii., pp. 43-45, 1912, an account of a criti- 

 cism of my treatment of Australian Crows, l)y Ogilvie-Grant, was 

 given in detail, and it seemed good to me to leave the matter at 

 rest until I should monograph the forms in my "Birds of Austra- 

 lia." There was little question that Ogilvie-Grant' s conclusions 

 were not final, ]>ut with the material then available it was more 

 a matter of opinion than fact. A year or two later a young 

 German, named Stresemann, studied the Crows, and his results, on 

 the larger amount of material, were little better than Ogilvie- 

 Grant's. I endeav'oured to indicate his mistakes to him, and he 

 agreed at that time that it would be imwise further to complicate 

 the matter. War then broke out, and perhaps from that fact 

 Stresemann did publish his result in a German periodical, Ver- 

 handlungen der Ornitholog Gesellschaft, Bayern, xii., 4, pp. 277- 

 304, May 1916, which has only recently been received here, since 

 the conclusion of the war. 



It seems just to give a summary of his results as they are now 

 on record, and undoubtedly incorrect, for the one reason that 

 he has made all the Crows in Australia as belonging to one 

 species, which no Australian will admit. 



Four forms are admitted : — Corvus coronoides coronoides (V. & 

 H.), New South Wales ; Corvus coronoides perplexus (Mathews), 



