22 



CORVID^E. 



Palestine. It is not easy to separate the breeding ranges of 

 nificollis and laurencei, but the former appears to be essentially a 

 bird of deserts and bare hills whilst the Punjab Raven is more 

 a bird of wooded country, though both are great wanderers and 

 overlap one another constantly in their non-breeding haunts. 



Nidiflcation. This Raven makes a large nest of sticks, sometimes 

 lined with a little wool, leaves or smaller, softer twigs and places 

 it near the top of a tree either in the open or in thin forest. The 

 eggs number from four to six, generally four or five and are a 

 pale blue-green marked with deep brown and with underlying 

 marks of pale grey and neutral tint. The markings are usually 

 thickly distributed over the whole surface but are sometimes 

 bolder and blacker and more sparse, making the eggs very hand- 

 some in appearance. They are typically rather long ovals. They 

 average about 50-7x33-6 mm. The breeding season is from 

 the end of December to early March. 



Fig. 2. A throat-hackle of the Raven of Sikkim (a) and of the 

 Raven of the Punjab (i). 



Habits. The Punjab Raven is a very bold, confiding bird and 

 has all the habits of the Common Crow, attending camps and 

 villages and going about without fear but with the wariness of 

 his tribe. Hume has noticed how a large number of Eavens die 

 annually in the autumn on their first arrival in Sind from no 

 apparent cause. This form of Raven will not be found far 

 from trees in the breeding season, nor does it haunt hills and 

 mountains of any great elevation, though it has been found at 

 about 6,000 feet in the Simla Hills by Mr. P. Dodsworth. 



