I think this is a great book, still useful on all sorts of things. Many years after publication, when I’d joined COG, I remember the president holding up a copy and declaring ‘This is our book’. It is relevant here
because back in 1969 (I recently consulted first ed. in NLA) long time magpie expert Robert Carrick of CSIRO Gungahlin treated the two magpies as subspecies. A little confusingly, the English species name was given as ‘Black-backed Magpie’. Some other writers
kept them as separate species for a few more years (Peter Slater, as we noticed) because there was no effective officially revised species list until years later.
The notes to the illustration are as below. Note that B-b Magpie is said to be ‘common’, W-b Magpie ‘fairly common’. About the White-backed Magpie: ‘This sub-species, and intergrades with varying amounts black and
white, or grey, on the back, occur sparingly in the area.’ Next: the rise of subspecies
