168 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



(juently repeated and answered by other birds of the same 

 troop, for they mostly flit about in small companies of from 

 four to six in number, apparently the parents and their off- 

 spring of the year. All the species occasionally descend to 

 the cultivated grounds, orchards, and gardens of the settlers, 

 and commit considerable havoc among their fruits and grain ; 

 in many parts of Australia, and particularly in Tasmania, they 

 form an article of food, and are considered good and even 

 dehcate eating. They usually build open cup-shaped nests 

 as large as that of the Crow, composed of sticks and other 

 coarse materials, lined with grasses or any other suitable sub- 

 stance that may be at hand ; the eggs are generally three, but 

 are sometimes four, in number. The sexes are similar in 

 plumage, and the young assume the livery of the adult from 

 the time they leave the nest. 



Sp. 88. STREPERA GRACULINA. 



Pied Crow-Shrike. 



Reveilleur de I'Isle de Norfolk ?, Daud. torn. ii. p. 267. 



Corvus graculinus, White's Bot. Bay, pi. in p. 251. 



Coracias strepera, Lath. Ind. Orn., vol. i. p. 173. 



Corvus streperns, Leach, Zool. Misc., vol. ii. pi. 86. 



Noisy Roller, Lat. Gen. Syn., Supp., vol. ii. p. 121. 



Le Grand Calibe, Le Vaill. Ois. de Par., &c., pi. 24. 



Cracticus streperus, Vieill. Gal. des Ois., pi. 109. 



Gracula strepera, Shaw, Gen. Zool., vol. vii. p. 462. 



Barita strepera, Temm. Man., part i. p. Ii. 



Coronica strepera, Gould, Syn. Birds of Australia, part i. 



Strepera, Less. Traite d'Orn., p. 329. 



Strepera graculina, G. R. Gray, Gen. of Birds, 2nd edit., p. 50. 



Strepera graculina, Gould, Birds of Australia, foL, vol. 11. pi. 42. 



This species was originally described and figured in White's 

 ' Voyage to New South Wales ' ; it is consequently the oldest 

 and most familiarly known member of the group to which it 

 belongs. It is very generally distributed over the colony of 



