CEYLON CROWS TN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 27 



Report of the Director of the Colombo Museum to the 

 Hon. the Colouial Secretary. 



It is not, I believe, the general experience that crows are detri- 

 mental to cocoanut trees. They are rather to be regarded as 

 useful birds, and in the instance quoted relating to the Golden 

 Hope estate, Selangor, it is not unlikely that they were in search 

 of the injurious cocoanut beetles which attack the cabbage of the 

 cocoanut palms. 



If this be so, the crows might incidentally have done some 

 damage without destructive intent. 



October 18, 1902. ARTHUR WILLEY. 



N.B. — It has frequently happened that insectivorous birds, which 



are really beneficial to man, have been blamed for the damage 



inflicted by their prey. In cases of doubt the truth may be 



ascertained by examination of the contents of the stomachs of the 



suspected birds. 



A. W. 



In consequence of the preceding correspondence steps were 

 taken to secure a number of crows, and it was made known to the 

 proprietors of boutiques where crows congregate that a price 

 would be paid for every crow brought alive to the Museum. But 

 crows are among the most intelligent of birds ; they are not to be 

 taken by frontal attack, and can rarely be captured by stratagem 

 during the daytime. It is necessary to organize night surprises 

 in the retreats where they roost. The most famous nocturnal 

 retreat for the crows of Colombo is Crow island, which lies in the 

 Kelani-ganga near its mouth, not far from the Leper Hospital at 

 Hendala. The Superintendent of the Leper Asylum, Dr. W. H. 

 Meier, was good enough to make representations to the villagers in 

 that neighbourhood on behalf of the Museum, with the result that 

 the full complement of crows was speedily obtained. 



A black carrion crow (Corvus macrorhynchus) was brought to 

 the Museum on the 24th October. It was fed upon rice which it 

 vomited up, and died the next day. The stomach contained 

 fragments of beetles {Buprestidce); the intestine was parasitised by 

 eight or nine cestode worms ; the skin was covered by an immense 

 multitude of minute acarids. 



Three gray crows* (Corvus splendens) were caught near a 

 butcher's shop and brought on the 29th October. During the day 

 one became lame, sickened, and shortly died. Perhaps it had been 



* Commonly known as the Indian crow. This species also occurs in every 

 inhabited island of the Maldive group, but not on Minicoy. (See Dr. H. Gadow's 

 Report on " Aves " in " The Fauna and Geography of the Maldive and Laccadive 

 Archipelagoes," edited by J. Stanley Gardiner, M.A., Vol. I., Part IV., 1903, p. 373.) 



