348 
COEONE MACEOEHYNCHA. 
but in the Nicobars it is only found in Camorta and Trinkut^ having been introduced into the former place 
from Port Blair. 
From Burmah its range extends as far east as China and Eastern Siberia. Swinhoe notes it as being 
found throughout theformerj including Formosa and Hainan; and^ in its large form of C. japonensis, it inhabits 
North China and Japan. The smaller Eaven, designated Corvus culminatus by Sykes, and kept distinct by 
Mr. Sharpe, has been found at Yarkand. 
Habits . — This bold bird frequents native villages, some of the towns in Ceylon, pasture-lands, and other 
situations in open country, as well as the wildest forest and jungle of the low country. It is usually found in 
pairs, except when collected to feed on carrion, when large flocks come together. They are constantly in 
attendance on cattle and buffaloes, perching on their backs and feeding on the ticks which infest these animals. 
In the interior it is very destructive to poultry and young chickens and is particularly partial to eggs. Several 
pairs always take up their quarters during the breeding-season in the swamps and tanks where Herons and 
Egrets breed, and rob the nests right and left while the owners are absent. I have seen one drop into the 
nest of a Purple Heron, turn over the eggs, and selecting one, adroitly carry it off in his bill, in less time than 
it takes to write this. On two occasions I have known them to kill squirrels [Sciurus penicillatus) , in one of 
which the marauder seized the animal by the tail and dashed it against the limb of a tree until it was killed ; 
in the other, which I witnessed myself, my attention was attracted by the creature’s cries, when I obsei'ved it to 
be doubled up, in its agony, round the bird’s bill, which had transfixed its stomach, the Crow holding it firmly, 
without any apparent exertion. It is a bird of powerful flight, traversing wide tracts of country high in the 
air, and frequently mounting to considei’able altitudes in its pursuit of Hawks and Eagles. In its own turn it 
is subject to the feeble but troublesome attacks of the “ King-Crow ” [Buchanga leucopygialis ) . The “ caw ” 
of this Crow is louder than that of C. splendens, but it has the power of modulating it and altering the tone 
to an extraordinary extent. 
J erdon speaks of it in India as eminently a carrion-crow, and often the first to discover a dead animal ; 
while Mr. Ball writes of it as being a most useful guide to the sportsman as to the whereabouts of both dead 
and living game, for, he says, “ A tiger or a bear cannot walk about in the daylight without being made the 
subject of some loudly-expressed remarks on the part of the Crows of the neighbourhood.” 
I have myself observed this inquisitive tendency in the Corby in Ceylon ; and Layard remarks that though 
a wounded deer may retire to the most tangled brake to die, its covert is invariably revealed to the hunter by 
the Crows, w'ho, congregating in small parties on the surrounding trees, patiently wait till life is extinct to 
begin their repast with the jackals and wild hogs. 
Nidification . — The principal months for breeding arc May, June, and July, most nests being built during 
May. The nest is placed in the fork of a top bough, often so slender that it will not admit of the eggs 
being safely reached ; or it may rest at the bases of cocoanut-fronds, entirely concealed from sight below. It 
is a large structure of sticks and twigs, lined with fine roots, hair, w'ool, &c. The exterior is often very 
straggling; but the nest is very little larger on the whole than that of C. splendens. As remarked in a former 
article, it is the favourite receptacle for the eggs of the Koel, containing sometimes as many as three or four 
of them. The eggs are usually four in number, and much resemble those of C. splendens. They are long 
ovals, and in many cases somewhat pyriform, of a pale sea-green or light bluish-green ground, some being 
thickly spotted with small specks of pale brown or umber-brown over the whole surface, mingled with linear 
spots of the same ; others have the markings much darker, larger, and more openly distributed. They vary, in 
general, from \'7 to I‘58 inch in length by 1‘2 to 1-7 in breadth; but Mr. Hume records one specimen as 
1‘95 in length, and says that in India they vary inter se surprisingly in size, in tone of colour, and in character 
of marking, and that the birds of the plains lay slightly larger eggs than those of the Himalayas or Nilghiris, 
tlie average of twenty of the former being 1-74 inch by 1-2 against 1-73 by I'lS and 1-7 by 1-18 respectively. 
