The bill is generally stout and fairly straight, with no distinct notch, being very strong in Corvultur and Corvus corax, but more or less curved in Gazzola, Microcorax, Macrocorax, Urocissa, Garrulus, Callaeas (Glaucopis), Struthidea, and Pyrrhocorax; while in the last-named and Heterocorax it is exceptionally long and slender, and in Nucifraga subulate and of diverse proportions. The metatarsus is usually strong; the wings are long and pointed in Crows and Choughs, shorter in Jays and Magpies, and decidedly rounded in Corcorax, Callaeas, and Struthidea. The variable tail is very long and much graduated in Pica, Cyanopica, Urocissa, Cryptorhina, Dendrocitta, Crypsirhina, Cissa, and Calocitta, the two median rectrices often exceeding the others; but it is usually moderate, though at the same time graduated in some Jays.
Crests occur in Cyanocitta, Platysmurus, Cyanocorax, Uroleuca, and Calocitta, those of the last two being recurved, and Calocitta having the plumes widened; sometimes the crown-feathers are dense and erectile, as in Garrulus. The head of Picathartes is bare and yellow, with a broad black patch behind each eye; Gymnocorax shews a large yellowish or whitish naked space on the face; the adult Rook (Corvus frugilegus) has whitish skin over the forehead, lores, and throat; in C. pastinator the throat is feathered. Pica mauritanica has a blue, and the yellow-billed P. nuttalli a yellow, ear-patch; Cissa a fleshy vermilion orbital outgrowth; Callaeas an orange rictal wattle with blue base in one species, a blue wattle in the other.
This Family occupies nearly all the globe, except the Australian Region east of the Sandwich Islands, New Caledonia, and New Zealand; while the members are less plentiful in America, and from Panama to Uruguay only a few genera akin to the Jay occur. The sexes are similar, the young usually duller.
True Crows are generally black with a purplish or greenish gloss, and frequently with white at the base of the feathers; some, however, are browner, while the silvery-grey hind-neck of the Jackdaw and the grey back and lower parts of the "Hooded" Crow are well known. The Chinese Corvus torquatus and the Ethiopian C. scapulatus have white collars behind, and white on the breast; in Gazzola of Celebes that colour extends further; but the African Corvultur has the white collar only. The throat sometimes exhibits hackles, and in the Antillean Microcorax leucognaphalus the feathers have hair-like extremities. Our visitor the Nutcracker (Nucifraga caryocatactes) is brown, with whitish dorsal and pectoral spots, and blackish quills; three or four other species of the genus, with most variable bills, inhabit conifer woods in the Palaearctic Region; and a near ally (Picicorvus columbianus) those of the western Rocky Mountains. Choughs (Pyrrhocorax), which occur in the Palaearctic and the extreme north of the Ethiopian Region, are glossy black, with brilliant red feet, and red or yellow bill.
Pica rustica, the well-known Magpie, needs no description, nor do its black and white congeners, P. mauritanica, distinguished by a naked blue spot behind the eye, and P. nuttalli with this spot and the beak yellow. P. rustica extends through the Palaearctic Region, and reaches Formosa and North America; the other species are found respectively in Algeria and Morocco and in California. Platysmurus aterrimus of Borneo, and Temnurus truncatus of Cochin China are instances of uniform glossy black forms in this section; Psilorhinus, from the centre of America, is a dull brown Jay. Cyanopica cooki, of Southern Spain, represented in Eastern Asia and Japan by C. cyana, is a blue Magpie, having cobalt wings and tail, an ashy body, and a black head; while the Indo-Chinese and Sumatran genus, Dendrocitta, shews brown, orange, buff, and grey tints, mingled with black and usually white. Cissa contains three species from India, Burma, Sumatra, and Java, of lovely green and blue, or cobalt and ultramarine hues, with some red-brown on the wing, a white tip to the tail, coral-red bill and feet, and–in two cases–a black nape. Our soft-plumaged Jay (Garrulus glandarius), with its black and white crest and wings, black tail, reddish-fawn upper and buff under parts, and patch of blue, white and black bars on the wing-coverts, may represent a genus ranging over the Palaearctic Region, and through the Himalayas, to the Burmese districts and Formosa. In Japan alone four species are found. Aphelocoma and Calocitta of the central parts of the New World; the Blue Jays (Cyanocitta) of North America; Urocissa, a Magpie with red or yellow bill and feet, from India, Burma, and China; and the Central and South American Cyanocorax, all shew more blue than Garrulus, not uncommonly on the under surface. Perisoreus infaustus, the Siberian Jay, is brown, grey, and olive, with much chestnut on the wings, tail, and abdomen, its congeners being plain brown, grey, and white. Lastly, Xanthura luxuosa, the Green Jay of South Texas and Mexico, is green, with yellow on the abdomen and lateral rectrices, and a black and blue head; some species of the genus, which reaches southwards to Venezuela and Bolivia, having the lower surface entirely yellow or black, and others being almost blue with black on the head.
Fig. 129.–Magpie. Pica rustica. × ⅙. (From Poachers.)
The habits of the cunning voracious Crows, the gregarious Rooks, the astute but bold Magpies and Jackdaws, and the more shy or retiring Jays and Choughs are well known; yet the habit of posting sentinels in the Rook, the tumbling in mid-air of that bird, the Raven, and the Jackdaw, the scolding pursuit of intruders by Magpies and Jays, and the breaking of clams, bones, and the like by dropping them from aloft, by the Raven, Carrion-Crow, and Corvus caurinus require passing mention.
Fig. 130.–Raven. Corvus corax. × 3⁄17.