NOTES. ‘Bl 
3. Crows as fishers,—I lately had an opportunity of watching a 
flock of crows doing a bit of “fishing” on their own account 
just after dusk, as they wended their homeward way, along the 
Bentota coast. Every time the waves receded they swarmed on 
the shore, picking up whatever was left in the track of the water. 
As the waves broke again they rose in air, all the time travelling 
along the shore in the direction of their flight home. 
Colombo, May 20, 1910. C. DRIEBERG. 
* Crows as fishers.’—In the second volume of his entertaining 
“ Curiosities of Natural History ” (reprinted in 1903 from the fifth 
edition : Macmillan, London), Mr. Frank Buckland has the follow- 
ing remarks on crows, which will be of interest apropos of Mr. 
Drieberg’s note. The passage occurs in the chapter entitled ‘‘'The 
Gamekeeper’s Museum ” (see p. 95) :-— 
“ As the museum was situated near the sea coast, | was therefore 
not surprised to see in the collection a Royston, or hooded crow. 
This bird’s proper home is the seashore, where his business is to 
follow the retiring tide, and to eat what is left thereby. Nor does 
he object to small crabs and those curious sea-anemones which the 
good folk of Guernsey so aptly call ‘ bloody-fingers.” Having 
capital wings, he often takes a look at the rocks, where the gulls and 
other sea-birds build their nests and place their eggs. When these 
fail him, he will take an inland journey, and very naturally mistakes 
a game bird’s egg for a gull’s egg. The keeper, in his turn, very 
naturally seeing what he is after, mistakes him for a carrion crow, 
shoots and gibbets him—hence his appearance in the museum. The 
Keeper calls him the saddle-back crow ; a good name again, for his 
head, tail, and wings are black, and the rest of his body of a fine 
ash-gray colour, so that he looks very like a common crow with a 
saddle on his back. Our French neighbours too, whose shores he 
also visits, have evidently, with the same idea, christened him 
Corneille mantelée, or crow with a cloak on. These crows are very 
quick in finding out dead or wounded birds. A great sportsman 
tells me that he has often gone at daylight to pick up wild fowl 
which he had shot the previous evening, and found that these saddle- 
back crows had anticipated him and made a meal of his wild duck 
and teal.” 
At Sea, June 14, 1910. A. WILLEY. 
4. Rambling Notes :— 
(a) Life-history of a eommon Ceylon Butterfly.—Y pthima ceyloniea. 
s—I should say without exception—the commonest of our Ceylon 
butterflies. It occurs throughout the year, and is a familiar object 
