The male has the crown of the head, ear-coverts and back of the neck black; a white mark from the base of the bill to the eye; back and rump dark greyish brown; upper tail-coverts white; wings blackish brown; the middle secondaries white along their outer edges; tail black, all the feathers except the two middle ones tipped with white on their inner webs; under surface greyish white; bill bluish lead-colour at the base, passing into black at the tip; feet blackish lead-colour; irides very dark reddish brown. The female resembles the male, but is more obscure in all her markings; and the young differ in being clothed in a plumage of mottled tawny and brown. The figures represent the two sexes of the natural size. [Illustration: CRACTICUS QUOYII. _J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith._ _Hullmandel & Walton Imp._ ] CRACTICUS QUOYII. Quoy’s Crow-Shrike. _Barita Quoyi_, Less. Zool. de la Coq., tom. i. p. 639. pl. 24.—Ib. Traité d’Orn., p. 345. _Mol-göl-ga_, Aborigines of Port Essington. We have abundant evidence that New Guinea and the continent of Australia belong to one and the same group of islands, and that both countries are adorned with similar forms of botany and zoology. In some instances the same species are found to inhabit both countries, and of this fact the present bird is an example. M. Temminck, to whom I showed specimens killed in Australia, assured me that they were identical with those from New Guinea. The northern coast is the only portion of Australia in which this bird has been observed. It is tolerably abundant at Port Essington, where it inhabits the mangrove swamps generally, even those close to the settlement. Mr. Gilbert states that it is one of the most shy and wary birds that can well be imagined; and that the nature of its usual haunts precludes in a great measure all chance of getting a sight of it. He has never met with it in any other situation than the darkest and thickest parts of the mangroves, where there is a great depth of mud, and where the roots of the trees are very thickly intertwined; it is among these roots that it is constantly seen searching for crabs. Its note is short and monotonous, and very like the name given to it by the aborigines, _Mol-göl-ga_, the second syllable being prolonged and forming the highest note; it also utters other sounds, some of them resembling those of the _Cracticus leuconotus_; at other times it frequently emits a note very similar to the cry of young birds for food. The stomach is muscular, and the food consists of crabs, and occasionally of coleoptera, neuroptera, and the larvæ of insects of various kinds. The entire plumage black, each feather of the upper and under surface broadly margined with deep glossy green; irides dark reddish brown; bill very light ash-grey, passing into leaden grey at the base, and dark bluish grey on the culmen near the tip; legs and feet greenish grey.