CORVUS COEAX TINGITANUS 19 



frequently sat by their old nests and made most ridiculous noises, 

 sometimes almost resembling a song. The peasants tell me (and I 

 can quite believe it, for food for so many juust be very hard to get) 

 that the Ravens do them a great deal of harm, that they have great 

 difficulty in saving their lambs from them (for at Hierro sheep take 

 the place of the goats of the rest of the islands), that they are equally 

 destructive amongst their crops, and that if it were not for the Ravens 

 the island would support many more people." 



According to Colonel Irby, C. c. tingitanus crosses the Straits of 

 Gibraltar from Marocco to Spain, but no specimens of the species 

 appear to have been actually obtained in the latter country. Its 

 occurrence, there, however, is not improbable, as it seems to have 

 occurred on the island of Sardinia on more than one occasion. The 

 Royal Florence Museum possesses an example of it, obtained at St. 

 Antioco, a small islaiid off the south-west coast of Sardinia, on 

 August 9th, 1894, and another specimen from the same island is 

 recorded as existing in Count Arrigoni's collection at Monsehce, 

 near Padua. The wing measurement of the Florence specimen is 

 15'25 inches, and its bill is distinctly that of C. c. tingitanus. I may 

 here observe that the Ravens found in Sardinia appear to be subject 

 to considerable variation in size, the majority being somewhat smaller 

 than typical C. corax. Specimens in my own collection from that 

 island vary in their wing measurement from 15'2o to 1650 inches. 

 The shape of the bill, however, in Sardinian birds does not usually 

 differ appreciably from that of C. . corax. Dr. Kleinschmidt has 

 recently distinguished the Sardinian Raven under the name of 

 G. c. .mrdus (Orn. Monats. 1903, p. 92). 



Throughout Marocco and Algeria, from the former of which 

 countries hails the type of this Raven, C. c. tingitanus is abundant, 

 both north and south of the Atlas, being found in sandy desert districts, 

 as well as in the more wooded and cultivated parts. 



In Tunisia the species is to be met with throughout the greater 

 part of the Regency, and is the Raven of the country, although in the 

 extreme southern region C. nmbrimis also occurs. It appears to be 

 generally distributed throughout Northern and Central Tunisia, being, 

 however, more abundant in some localities than in others. In the 

 neighbourhood of Feriana and Kasrin in Central Tunisia the species 

 is particularly plentiful, and at the former place large flocks of the 

 bird may be seen of an evening, wending their way home from the 



