230 INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS 



trouble nrises. Plenty of little birds do likewise, but 

 whenever a large person or thing acts in an " underhand " 

 way the act appears as large as a crime. Certainly it is a 

 wrong. The general habit of this species is to fossick for 

 food upon low-ljing grounds, or in the vicinity of river 

 courses, where it can find insects and their larva3 with the 

 least amount of labour, as it prefers working upon the 

 ground. All the members of the genus adopt this means 

 to get a living, and they have become thoroughly expert in 

 their ground movements. In form there is a strong 

 resemblance to the Crow, but in habits there is a great 

 difference. The Crow-Shrike is not a carrion-eater. Its 

 relationship to the shrike is more remote than, and 

 is held together through the medium of, the magpie 

 (Gymnorhina). The Strepera lives very largely on 

 insect food, but it also causes considerable annoyance 

 to the orchardist. All Black and Grey Magpies are ex- 

 cellent eating, so, when killed, they should never be 

 wasted. Dr. James Norton, writing in the Agricultural 

 Gazelle of New South Wales, 1897, remarks: — "The 

 Streperas are generally classed among insectivorous birds, 

 being, therefore, presumably friends of the fruit-grower, 

 and no doubt they do eat a great many insects when they 

 can get nothing more to their taste. About ISpringwood, 

 at all events, they are more destructive to fruit than all 

 the other birds put together. They are wholesale devourers 

 of apples, pears, peaches, plums, quinces, grapes, figs, and 

 every other kind of fruit, including even unripe date plums, 

 which one would have thought sufficiently astringent to 

 disgust any bird. They are terribly destructive to maize, 

 the sheaths of which, covering the young cobs, they strip 

 back to enable them to pick off the sweet, milky grasses 

 just as they are ripening. They may be driven oft' by 



