COEONE SPLENDENS. 
(THE COMMON GREY CROW.) 
Corms splendens, Vieill. N. Diet. d’Hist. Nat. viii. p. 44 (1816) ; Blyth, Cat. B. Mus. A. S. 
B. p. 90 (1849); Kelaart, Prodromus, Cat. p. 124 (1852); Layard, Ann. Sc Mag. Nat. 
Hist. 1854, xiii. p. 214 ; Horsf. & Moore, Cat. B. Mus. E. I. Co. ii. p. 559 (1856); Jerdon, 
B. of Ind. ii. p. 298 (1863); Nevill, J. A. S. (Ceylon Br.) p. 33 (1870-71); Legge, 
ibid. p. 52; Holdsworth, P, Z. S. 1872, p. 460; Legge, Ibis, 1874, p. 23; Butler, 
Str. Feath. 1875, p. 493; Hume, ibid. 1876, p. 463. 
Corvus hn^udicus, Gray, Hand-1. B. ii. p. 14 (1870) ; Hume, Nests and Eggs, p. 413 (1873) ; 
id. Str. Feath. 1873, p. 206 ; Adam, ibid. p. 386 ; Ball, ibid. 1874, p. 418. 
Corone sj)lendens, Sharpe, Cat. B. iii. p. 33 (1877). 
The Indian Hooded Crow, Kelaart ; The Common Indian Crow, Jerdon. 
Kowa, Patti-Jeowa, TJesi-lcowa, Hind., in various districts ; Kag or Kak, Beng. ; Manchi-kaki, 
Telugu ; Nalla-kaka, Tara. (Jerdon). 
Karavi-kaka, lit. “ Low-caste Crow,” Sinhalese ; Kakum, Ceylonese Tamils ; Grwya, 
Portuguese in Ceylon. 
Adult male and female. Length 15'75 to 17’0 inches ; wing 10-0 to ll'O ; tail 6'0 to 6'5 ; tarsus 1'9 to 2'0 ; mid 
toe 1’4 to 1'5, claw (straight) O'o; bill to gape 1‘9 to 2'0. This species is as variable as the last in size, but 
females average smaller than males. 
Iris dark brown ; bill, legs, and feet black. 
Eorehead, crown, chin, cheeks and throat, back, wings, and tail black ; the back, wing-coverts, and outer webs of 
secondaries with purple, and the throat, primaries, and tail with green reflections; nape, ear-coverts, sides and 
back of neck cinereous grey, blending into the black of the surrounding parts, and passing on the chest into 
a slightly duskier hue than that of the hind neck ; breast and lower parts greyish black, glossed slightly with 
greenish and blending into the hue of the chest ; under surface of primaries, particularly near the base, pervaded 
with greyish. 
Young. Birds of the year have the w'ing varying from 9'0 to 10‘0 inches. 
In the nest-plumage the hind neck is dull grey and the crown is pervaded with the same ; the chest and under surface 
are of an earthy brown, and at the age of three or four months the greenish-black feathers appear on the breast. 
Ohs. The plumage of this Crow is subject to variation dependent on age and freshness of the feathers ; in abraded 
plumage the hind neck becomes quite fulvous, losing the grey tint of the newly acquired feather. This character 
is not the result of age in the individual : birds that are in moult may be seen with grey feathers intermingled 
with old fulvous-coloured ones. The amount of metallic reflections present on the upper-surface plumage increases 
somewhat as the bird grows to maturity. 
Ceylonese specimens have been said to be blacker than Indian ; but I do not know whether this alleged character would 
invariably hold good as regards the upper surface, were an equally large series of adult examples from the two 
localities compared ; certainly continental birds are paler on the chest, and the grey tint descends lower down 
than in those from Ceylon, but some examples from India will coincide as regai’ds the hiud neck with insular 
ones. Birds which I have examined from Nepal and Darjiling are very pale on the hood and chest. The wings 
of eight specimens measure respectively 11-2, 11-0, 11-4, 10-8, 10-0, 11-9, ll'O, 10-8 inches; the largest are 
from Nepal. Ceylonese examples compared, therefore, with the above series will be seen to be smaller than their 
Indian fellows ; but in regard to size insular birds vary very much ; one has only to look at a number of adults 
as they hop about in the streets to notice at once the variation in size which exists among them. Mr. Hume 
writes that specimens shot in the Laccadives were very dark, recalling 0. insolen-s. 
In Burmah is a nearly allied race or subspecies of the present, the Corvus insolens of Hume. It differs from the 
Indian bird in being blacker with a somewhat dull appearance about those parts which in the Indian Crow are 
