CROW. 17 



9.— WHITE-BREASTED CROW— Pl. xxxix. 



Corvus Dauricus, Ind. Orn. i. 154. Gm. Lin. i. 367. Pall. It. iii. 694. Georgi. 165. 



Shaw's Zool. vii. 349. 

 Corvus scapulatus, Daud. Orn. ii. 232, 

 Corneille a scapulaire blauc, Levail. Ois. ii. 14. pl. 53. 

 Corneille du Senegal, Biif. iii. 67. Pl. enl. 327. 

 Chinese black Raven with a white neck, Osb. Voy. i. 377. 

 White-breasted Crow, Gen. Syn. i. 367. pl. 15. Id. Sup. ii, 110. Kolb. Cap. ii. 146. 



Fryer. Trav. p. 21, 



SIZE of a small Crow; length at least twelve inches. Bill black; 

 head and throat black, glossed with blue ; neck and breast, and some- 

 times the belly white ; the rest of the body, wings, and tail blue-black; 

 legs lead-colour ; claws black. The wings are long, and reach 

 three-fourths on the tail. 



Inhabits Senegal, and various other parts of Africa, but no where 

 more plentiful than at the Cape of Good Hope, where it makes the 

 nest in trees, or bushes, not well clothed with leaves, and lays five 

 or six green eggs, spotted with brown. The Hottentots hold this, 

 and some others of the Crow Genus, in great estimation ; being of 

 singular use in picking out insects from the backs of oxen, with which 

 they are sometimes so covered as to be in danger of losing their lives. 

 Pallas observes, that the Corvus dauricus, or Chinese Jackdaw, 

 comes early in the spring, in great flights from China, and the South 

 Monguls Country, into the parts about the Lake Baikal, most fre- 

 quent about the towns and villages on the River Lena ; in which 

 part the Jackdaws and Royston Crows are seldom seen : * found also 

 in Persia. 



It inhabits likewise the Island of Johanna, where it lives on 

 insects and fruits ; and Mr. Bruce found it in Abyssinia, as did Lord 

 Valentia the beginning of January, about Dhalact— It is subject to 



* Ind. Orn. i. p. 154. 8. /3. f See Trav. ii. 225, 



TO!. III. D 



