Ornithology of Northern Borneo. 83 



30. CiSSA MINOR. 



Cissa minor, Cab. ; Sliarpe, Cat. B. iii. p. 86 (1877) ; id. 

 P. Z. S. 1879, p. 335 ; id. Ibis, 1887, p. 437. 



Mr. Whitehead has brought a large series of this beautiful 

 Magpie, exhibiting a rare combiuation of colour, the head 

 ranging from almost gamboge-yellow to ochreous yellow, 

 and the body-plumage from yellow to yellowish green and 

 emerald-green, and even to bright blue. There seems to be 

 no sequence of plumages from one to the other, but we may 

 take it that the younger birds are more bluish green than 

 the old ones. The smallest nestlings are very blue-green, 

 with so little crest that the black band reaches quite round 

 the nape, and there are no crest-feathers to interrupt its 

 outline. Two nestlings, a little further advanced, have more 

 of a yellow tinge, while a full-grown young bird is, again, 

 bluish green except from the fore neck to the vent, where it 

 is emerald-green. The wings of the young birds are brown 

 or reddish brown, not claret-coloured as in the adults. The 

 males have the wing 5"l-5*3 inches, and the females 5*0- 

 5-3. 



[Feet and bill vermilion ; iris lake. Cissa minor is fairly 

 common in the same kind of scrub-country as is frequented 

 by the Dendrocitta, but, unlike that species, it does not 

 ascend Kina Balu, being confined to a level between 1000 

 and 3000 feet ; it is, indeed, very rare at the latter elevation, 

 though decidedly common lower down. In the early morn- 

 ing and towards evening the Cissas become very garrulous, 

 one bird whistling to another. The notes are many, the 

 most peculiar being a three-syllabled whistle, from which it 

 gets its Dusan name of " Ton-ka-kis." I often shot speci- 

 mens in the evening by watching the birds as they called to 

 each other from a long distance. As one bird finished 

 whistling it would fly off, and its place would be occu- 

 pied by another bird, which would again commence call- 

 ing to its more distant companions. The natives often 

 brought me nestlings in March, but all attempts to rear 

 them failed, as they perished at night-time, apparently from 

 the cold. The nests were found in the thick undergrowth, 



g2 



