[157] Gould, Birds of Australia, vol. i., pp. 442-45.
[158] Bingley, Animal Biography, vol. ii., p. 220.
[159] For full information, see Buckland, Curiosities of Natural History, p. 183.
[160] Of the crow (carrion and hooded), Edward says: 'He goes aloft with a crab, and lets it fall upon a stone or a rock chosen for the purpose. If it does not break, he seizes it again, goes up higher, lets it fall, and repeats his operation again and again until his object is accomplished. When a convenient stone is once met with, the birds resort to it for a long time. I myself know a pretty high rock, that has been used by successive generations of crows for about twenty years!' Also, as Handcock says, 'a friend of Dr. Darwin saw on the north coast of Ireland above a hundred crows preying upon mussels, which is not their natural food; each crow took a mussel up into the air, twenty or forty yards high, and let it fall on the stones, and thus breaking the shell, got possession of the animal. Ravens, we are told, often resort to the same contrivance.'
[161] Couch, Illustrations of Instinct, pp. 192-93.
[162] Gleanings, &c., vol. i., p. 71.
[163] Ibid.
[164] Voyage of a Naturalist, &c., p. 184.
[165] Orn. Biog., i., p. 276.
[166] Newton, Encycl. Brit., art. 'Birds.'