CISSA. 17 



lined. The outer part of the nest is large compared to what I 

 should call the true nest, and consists of a heap of twigs, &c., like 

 what is gathered together for the platform of a Crow's nest. 



" The eggs, which are four in number, vary in length from 1'45 

 to l"2o, and in breadth from 0*9 to 0*75. The ordinary type is an 

 egg a good deal pointed at the thinner end. The ground-colour 

 is greenish white, blotched and freckled with ruddy brown, with a 

 ring at the larger end of confluent spots. The young birds are of 

 a very dull colour until after the first month. The normal number 

 of eggs laid appears to be four." 



Captain Cock wrote to me : " U. flavirostris is common at 

 Dhurmsala, but the nest is rather difficult to 6nd. I have only 

 taken six in three years. It is usually placed amongst the branches 

 of the hill oak, where it has been polled, and the thickly growing 

 shoots afford a good cover ; but sometimes it is on the top of a 

 small slender sapling. The nest is a good-sized structure of sticks 

 with a rather deep cup lined with dried roots ; in fact, it is very 

 much like the nest of Garrulus Icuweolatus, only larger and much 

 deeper. They generally lay four eggs, which differ much in colour 

 and markings." 



Dr. Jerdon says : " I had the nest and eggs brought me once. 

 The nest was made of sticks and roots. The eggs, three in 

 number, were of a greenish-fawn colour very faintly blotched with 

 brown." 



The eggs are of the ordinary Indian Magpie type, scarcely, if at 

 all, smaller than those of U. occipitalis, and larger than the average 

 of eggs of either Dendrocitta rufa or D. himalayemis. Doubtless 

 all kinds of varieties occur, as the eggs of this family are very 

 variable ; but I have only seen two types in the one the ground 

 is a pale dingy yellowish stone-colour, profusely streaked, blotched, 

 and mottled with a somewhat pale brown, more or less olivaceous 

 in some eggs, the markings even in this type being generally 

 densest towards the large end, where they form an irregular mottled 

 cap : in the other type the ground is a very pale greenish-drab 

 colour ; there is a dense confluent raw-sienna-coloured zone round 

 the large end, and only a few spots and specVs of the same colour 

 scattered about the rest of the egg. All kinds of intermediate 

 varieties occur. The texture of the shell is line and compact, and 

 the eggs nre mostly more or less glossy. 



The eggs vary from 1-22 to 1-48 in 'length, and from 0-8 to O96 

 in breadth ; but the average of twenty-seven eggs is 1*3 by 0'92. 



14. Cissa chinensis (Bodd.). The Green Magpie. 



Cissa sinensis (l?n>*.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 312. 



Ci>sa speciosa (Shaw), Hume, Rough Draft N. fy E. no. G73. 



According to Mr. Hodgson's notes the Green Magpie breeds in 

 Xepal in the lower valleys and in the Terai from April to July. 

 The nest is built in clumps of bamboos and is large and cup-shaped, 

 composed of sticks and leaves, coated externally with bamboo-leaves 



TOL. i. 2 



