THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
Nest. A large open structure and rather deep ; composed of sticks and twigs, lined with 
strips of bark, grasses, hair, wool, etc. Dimensions over all, 18 to 20 inches 
across by 9 to 14 inches in depth. Egg cavity, 7 to 8 inches across by 4 to nearly 
5 inches deep. Usually placed high up in the forked branches of a large tree, at 
heights varvdng from 30 to 90 feet or more. 
Breeding-mcmtiis. August to end of December ; sometimes as early as July, and as late 
as January. 
Ceows are mentioned by the early travellers, but simply as Crows, 
of no importance nor interest. 
Vigors and Horsfield, however, upon their examination of the collection 
of Australian birds in the Linnean Society’s Museum, found the specimens 
worth describing as a new species, writing: “ This bird has a very general 
resemblance to our common species, C. carone. It is to be distinguished chiefly 
by its superior size, its length being twenty-two inches, while that of the European 
species is eighteen inches. The bill also differs. In our bird this member is 
much more elongated in proportion to its size ; the culmen is less rounded and 
arched, and the gonys of the under-mandible less prominent; it is also less 
smooth and glossy than in C. corone. In Mr. Caley’s MSS. are the following 
remarks; ‘ This bird is gregarious and not to be met with at aU times. Its 
native name is Wa’gan. Moowattin, a native foUow'er of mine, tells me that 
it makes its nest like the Co’ ruck {Cr. tibicen), but that he never met with more 
than one nest, which was in a Coray^bo tree, at the Devil’s Back, about four 
miles from Prospect Hill. He and several other natives at first took it to be 
a Curraygin's (Scythrops) nest. There were two young ones in it, and the 
broken shells of two eggs, which were quite black. There was a quantity of 
dung under the tree. I have observed that the croak of this bird is not so 
hoarse as that of C. corone. This was also remarked by the same native when 
with me in this country (England) on his hearing a Crow one morning near 
Fulham. The people in the colony say that it wiU devour chickens; this I 
rather doubt.’ In a subsequent note, iVIr. Caley says that he remembers 
once or twice meeting wdth a single bird of this species; and once more, 
particularly in the month of November 1804, w'hen in the roughest part of the 
mountains, he observed for several days a pair of them fljdng about. The 
people who accompanied him observed that they must be lost, or they would 
never remain in so dreary a countrJ^ On the whole, however, he considered 
them as gregarious.” 
Gould, under the name White-eyed Crow, WTote : “ This species is so inter¬ 
mediate in size, in the development of the feathers of the throat, in its voice, 
and in many parts of its economy, between the Carrion-Crow and Raven of our 
OAvn island, that it is difficult to say to which of those species it is most nearly 
392 
