17 
2. Food . — From the date of their arrival here, the birds always 
fed well, preferring raw meat to anything, and not being inconve- 
nienced by it being several days old. At one time they had a 
plentiful supply of elephant meat, which kept them going for the 
best part of a week. They also ate bananas and boiled rice, though 
not with the same avidity, and were always specially fond of bath- 
ing in the pans of water which I had placed in their cages. When 
first they were introduced to the caterpillars of the Bee Hawkmoth 
they regarded them with some suspicion, and only ate one or two. 
In a very few days time however, the) devoured every caterpillar, 
chrysalid, and moth, that they could get hold of. Many thousands 
of these insects have been given to them daily, and there have 
never been any left over. There can be no doubt whatever there- 
fore that a caterpillar diet is quite acceptable to them, directly 
they get used to it. Since their release, they have flown away 
to the coffee, and have evidently been looking for food there, but 
I have not been able to see them actually catch the Bee Hawk 
Moth caterpillars, though they very assiduously clean the plantain 
trees of the caterpillars which roll themselves up in the leaves of' 
this plant. It seems to me, that the utility of the crows, as ene- 
mies to the coffee caterpillar, will depend largely upon the num- 
bers of the birds in the place, and the consequent scarcity of the 
food to which they have been accustomed in Ceylon, that is to say, 
the refuse in the vicinity of human dwellings It is only natural 
that they should prefer such food, especially as it is more easily 
procured. It was only when the caterpillars appeared in very 
large numbers, that the crows in Ceylon were attracted to them, 
and so it will be here, in all probability. But there is always the 
factor with our importations, that they will have got to recognise 
the coffee caterpillars and chrysalids, as palatable articles of diet, 
before they get their freedom. It has been suggested that the 
crows should be let loose amongst coffee trees that are badly 
attacked by caterpillars, and which have been previously covered 
over with netting to prevent the birds from flying away. I should 
have given this a trial, as no harm could result from letting the 
birds understand where the caterpillars are to be found, but the 
present consignment is such a small one that it seemed better to 
leave them altogether, and not separate them, as I should have 
been obliged to, for there are no coffee trees close by, just now, 
on w r bich the caterpillars are to be found in any numbers. So I 
decided to leave this part of the experiment to a future occasion, 
when we get in a fresh batch. 
. 3 . Breeding . — I am satisfied that as soon as the crows decide 
on a suitable spot, they will begin to breed. They are olten to be 
, seen flying about in pairs already, though I have observed no 
actual attempt to commence building their nests. Whilst the last 
batch were still in their cages, it was evident that the question of 
mating had not been consigned to oblivion. I here were at least 
two pairs, whose attitude towards each other was distinctly sug- 
gestive of something more than ordinary friendship, and I also 
noticed that one of the caged birds had an bbvious preference for 
Avr 
