CORVUS MACRORHYNCHUS, of Wagler. 467 



All these specimens are adult and fine ones, except No. 31, 

 which exhibits a tendency to bruninism. I have excluded 

 numbers of specimens, of which the wings were more or less 

 imperfect, the quills not fully developed, &c. 



I have made all the measurements myself with the greatest 

 care, and I regret to say, looking to the extremely unsatisfactory 

 character of the results obtained, have wasted an entire day 

 over the work. 



One word as to my measurements. I measure the tarsi in front 

 from the nick of the joint ; possibly Mr. Sharpe measures be- 

 hind, as my tarsal measurements all seem to run smaller 

 than his. 



When Mr. Sharpe talks of innermost secondaries I under- 

 stand him to mean the latest secondary or earliest tertiary, which- 

 ever is longest. In these Crows' wings I reckon only the three 

 last large feathers as tertiaries — the second and third tertiaries 

 being each usually from 0*75 to 1*0 shorter than the preceding 

 one. By the first secondary I mean the one next the last 

 primary, and by the latest secondary I mean the one next the 

 first tertiary. 



I entered on this laborious review perfectly unbiassed, deter- 

 mined to give my friend Mr. Sharpe's views the weight that 

 they deserve, and if possible to demonstrate their correctness ; 

 but the conclusion to which this troublesome investigation 

 has led me is utterly adverse to his contention. 



In the first place, whatever it may be in the live bird (and 

 Mr. Sharpe was not dealing with these,) the relative propor- 

 tions of the first primary to the secondaries in specimens, ap- 

 pears to me an utterly worthless character ; it is not only in 

 males and females shot at the same time that they do not agree, 

 but even at times they differ iu the two wings of the same 

 bird — sometimes the first secondary is longest, sometimes the 

 last, sometimes the middle one. Again, sometimes, the first 

 tertiary is the longer, sometimes the last secondary. 



Under these circumstances it appears to me that nothing 

 remains to separate culmenatus from macrorhynchus and levail- 

 lanti but difference of size, and this is so extremely variable 

 that I for one cannot see my way to any specific separation 

 on this basis. No doubt the bills of the Andaman birds run a 

 great deal larger than those from Simla, and so do those of the 

 birds from Pegu and Tenasserim though to a less degree, but 

 one has only to study carefully the table above given to see 

 how utterly useless this difference in size is as a specific 

 character. 



There remains for the separation of macrorhynclia and 

 levaillanli, the difference alluded to by Mr. Sharpe, namely the 



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