FajIILY—CORCORAO nDIDiE. 
Genus— CORCORAX. 
CoECORAX Lesson, Traits d’Ornith., livr. 5, 
p. 324, (Dec.) 1830. Type (by mono- 
^ypy) • • • • • • • • .. Cor cor ax australis Lesson= 
Coracia melanoramphos Vieillot. 
Cercoronns Cabanis, Arch, fiir Nat. (Wiegm.) 
1847, p. 335. New name, on score of 
purism, for Gorcorax Lesson 
Also spelt— 
Corcoronis Gr&y, 1849. 
(7orcoronii« Bonaparte, Consp. Gen. Av., Vol. I., p. 388, 1850. 
Large “ Crows ” with long, slender, curved, bills, long wings, very long tail, 
long legs and small feet. 
The bill is longer than the head, slender, laterally compressed, tip sharp, 
cuhnen rounded, practically no basal expansion, so that the width at the 
base is about equal to the depth; nostrils circular in deep, small, basal groove 
hidden by nasal bristles, or, perhaps better, nasal feathering, rictals obsolete; 
the mider mandible about as slender as the upper, the interramal space 
narrow and feathered, less than half the length of the bill, the gonys a httle 
decurved, not angulate. 
The wing long but roimded, the fifth primary longest, the foirrth very 
little shorter, longer than the sixth, the third httle shorter, longer than the 
seventh, the second shorter than the eighth, the first primary about half the 
length of the fifth, and shorter than the secondaries. 
The tail is very long and well rounded, nearly wedge-shaped. 
The legs are long and stout, scutate in front, bhaminate behind ; the toes 
comparatively short, the outer and inner toes subequal, the inner toe and 
claw about equal to the middle toe alone, the hind-toe stouter, the claw stout 
and longest, but the hind-toe and claw shorter than the middle toe and claw; 
aU claws short and sharp. 
VOL. XII. 
413 
