STREPERA ANAPHONENSIS. 
Grey Crow-Shrike. 
Bartta Anaphonensis, Temm. Pl. Col.—Less. Traité d’Orn., p. 346, Atlas, pl. 47. fiz. 1. 
Strepera plumbea, Gould in Proc. of Zool, Soe., Part XTV. p. 20. 
Dje-laak, Aborigines of Western Australia. 
Squeaker, of the Colonists. 
Havine formerly considered the Grey Crow-Shrikes of New South Wales and Western Australia as distinct 
species, T assigned to the Swan River bird the specific appellation of plunbea; subsequent research has, 
however, proved them to be identical: I am therefore under the necessity of adopting the name of Ana- 
phonensis, previously applied to the species by my friend M, Temminck, and of sinking that of plumbea into 
a synonym. 
No one species of the genus has so wide a range as the present, extending as it does from New South 
Wales on the east to Swan River on the west coast. It is, however, more local in its habitat than any of 
them, at least such is the case in New South Wales; for although it is tolerably abundant at Illawarra, at 
Camden, avd in the park of C, Throsby, Esq., at Bong-bong, it was not seen in any other district that I 
visited. Mr. Gilbert states that he observed it in every part of Western Australia visited by him; and that 
he mostly met with it in the thickly wooded forests, singly or in pairs, feeding on the ground with a gait 
and manners very much resembling the Common Crow. Its flight is easy and long-sustained, and it occa- 
sionally mounts to a considerable height in the air. 
Its note is a piercing shriek, very much resembling in sound the native name. 
The stomach is very muscular, and the food consists of coleoptera and the larvae of insects of various 
kinds. 
It breeds in the latter part of September and the beginning of October, forming a nest of dried sticks in 
the thickest part of the foliage of a gum- or mahogany-tree and laying three eggs, the ground-colour of 
which is either reddish buff or wood-brown, marked over nearly the whole of the surface with blotches of a 
darker tint ; their medium length is one inch and nine lines by one inch and two and a half lines broad. 
The sexes resemble each other so closely in colour, that it is impossible to distinguish the one from the 
other, except by dissection. 
All the upper surface leaden grey, becoming much darker on the forehead and lores ; wings black ; 
secondaries margined with grey and tipped with white; basal half of the inner webs of the primaries white, 
of the outer webs grey; the remainder of their length black, slightly tipped with white; tail black, 
margined with grey and largely tipped with white ; all the under surface greyish brown; under tail-coverts 
white ; irides orange ; bill and feet black. 
The figure represents a male of the natural size. 
