20 CORVIDJE. 



I personally have found the nest with eggs in May, June, July, 

 and during the first week of August, in various districts in the 

 North- West Provinces, and have had them sent me from Saugor 

 (taken in July) and from Hausi (taken in April, May, and June) ; 

 but perhaps because the bird is so common scarcely any one has 

 sent me notes about its nidification, and I hardly know whether 

 in other parts of India and Burma its breeding-season is the same 

 as with us. 



The nest is always placed in trees, generally in a fork, near the 

 top of good large ones ; babool and mango are very commonly chosen 

 in the North- West Provinces, though 1 have also found it on neem 

 and sisso trees. It is usually built with dry twigs as a foundation, 

 very com monly thorny and prickly twigs being used, on which the 

 true nest, composed of fine twigs and lined with grass-roots, is 

 constructed. The nests vary much : some are large and loosely 

 put together, say, fully 9 inches in diameter and 6 inches in 

 height externally ; some are smaller and more densely built, and 

 perhaps not above 7 inches in diameter and 4 inches in depth. 

 The egg-cavity is usually about 5 inches in diameter and 2 inches 

 in depth, but they vary very much both in size and materials ; and 

 I see that I note of one nest taken at Agra on the 3rd August 

 " A very shallow saucer some 6 inches in diameter, and with a 

 central depression not above 1| inch in depth. It was composed 

 exclusively of roots ; externally somewhat coarse, internally of 

 somewhat finer ones. It was very loosely put together." 



Five is the full complement of eggs, but it is very common to 

 find only four fully incubated ones. 



Mr. W. Blewitt writes that he "found several nests in the 

 latter half of April, May, and the early part of June in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Hansie. 



" Four was the greatest number of eggs I found in any nest. 



" The nests were placed in neem, keekur, and shishum trees, at 

 heights of from 10 to 17 feet from the ground, and were densely 

 built of twigs mostly of the keekur and shishum, and more or less 

 thickly lined with fine straw and leaves. They varied from 6 to 8 

 inches in diameter and from 2 to 3 inches in depth." 



Mr. A. Anderson writes : "The Indian Magpie lays from April 

 to July, and I have once actually seen a pair building in February. 

 Their eggs are of two very distinct types, the one which, accord- 

 ing to my experience, is the ordinary one, is covered all over with 

 reddish-brown spots or rather blotches, chiefly towards the big end, 

 on a pale greenish-white ground, and is rather a handsome egg ; 

 the other is a pale green egg with faint Irown markings, which are 

 confined almost entirely to the obtuse end. I have another clutch 

 of eggs taken at Budaon in 1865, which presents an intermediate 

 variety between the above two extremes; these are profusely 

 blotched with russet-brown on a dirty- white ground. 



" The second and third nests above referred to contained five 

 eggs; but the usual complement is not more than four. On the 

 2nd August, 1872, 1 made the following note relative to the breeding 



