250 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



the Black-backed Crow-Shrike, or Piping Crow (Gymnorhina 

 tibicen), erroneously, but very persistently, called Magpie by the 

 colonists, collected during my stay in Australia, I decided, after 

 reading with interest Dr. Butler's remarks on the subject, to 

 seize the opportunity for trying to ascertain from such ample 

 material the extent to which this principle might affect this par- 

 ticular species. 



Dr. Butler's method for measuring the dried and mounted 

 wing consists in ascertaining its length from the upper head of 

 the upper arm-bone to the extreme tip of the longest of the flight- 

 feathers, which is situated on the hand portion. Since any 

 difference in the measurements can therefore only be the result 

 of this longest of the primaries itself, I came to the inevitable 

 conclusion that in this way no information at all is procurable in 

 regard to the extent to which the rest of the remiges participate 

 on the area of wing for supposed sexual difference, an adjunct of 

 no mean importance in this question. To supply this deficiency 

 necessitated the measuring of all the flight-feathers separately, 

 on one side at least, which in the present case was that of the 

 left-hand wing. This process was rendered somewhat easier 

 from the fact that only three of the specimens examined were 

 dry skins, all the others being preserved in spirit. There are 

 ten primaries and also ten secondaries in the wing of this species. 

 By commencing to count the primaries from the tip of the wing 

 inwards, as Dr. Butler has done, the fourth flight-feather is 

 found to be the longest of all. This makes this remex identical 

 with the corresponding one of the song-birds proper, or Oscines, 

 in which group it has been considered to be the third, owing to 

 the " assumed " absence of the first or outermost remex. For 

 this reason I have here followed the practice now generally 

 adopted by systematists of counting the primaries from within — 

 that is, the carpal joint, outwards to the extreme end. By doing 

 this it will be found that the longest primary in this species is 

 the seventh in number, same as in the case of the song-birds, 

 where there is supposed to be one less, namely, the tenth. 



All my measurements are expressed in millimetres. The 

 highest figures for the seventh, or the longest primary, obtained 

 for the twenty-seven specimens examined, are the following : — 



