DETAILED LIST OF BIRDS. 
287 
661. CorvTis intermedius, Adams. 
Several specimens were obtained in Kashmir, Ladak, and 
Yarkand. It was common everywhere except in deserts, 
and as noisy but not nearly so impudent in the neighbour- 
hood of the City of Yarkand, as C. splendens is with 
us. [G. 
All the specimens are identical with each other, and with 
examples from Simla, Massuri, Nyne Thai and Darjeeling. 
I consider this black Himalayan Crow, now always known 
under Adams' name of C. intermedius, a somewhat doubtful 
species. From Singapore to Simla (and as it is now proved, 
to Yarkand), the same type of Crow prevails ; but as you get 
further north, until you near the Himalayas, so does the 
bird slightly diminish in size, and the bill become slightly 
feebler and less bowed on the culmen. Dr. Jerdon knew 
nothing of this supposed species, C. intermedius, when he 
quoted Adams to the effect that it was no larger than 
C. splendens. I have measured a score or more in different 
parts of the Himalayas, and instead of its not being larger 
than C. splendens, I find that it varies in length from 18 0 
to 21*0 ; in wing, from 115 to 12*6 ; in expanse, from 34*5 
to 39 ; in tail, from 7 to 85 ; in tarsus, from 1*9 to 2-2 ; in 
bill (measured straight from forehead to point), from 2-0 to 
2*4. All these dimensions (the biggest being males, the 
smallest females) are from specimens killed at heights of 
7000 feet and upwards. Now these dimensions are precisely 
those of Corvus culminatus killed in Oudh and the N.W. 
Provinces ; and many of these appear to me absolutely in- 
separable from the Hill birds, though some undoubtedly have 
the culmen slightly more raised. As one proceeds further 
south the birds become larger, and the culmen is more raised. 
The wedge-like character of the tail in C. intermedius is 
insisted on, but in a carefully measured series of this latter 
killed at Simla at 7500 feet, and forty-six miles from the 
plains, I found that the longest exceeded the shortest tail- 
feathers by from 0 8 to 1'4), while in an equally carefully 
measured series procured at Mullanee in Oudh, some thirty 
