252 DENnROCITTWJE. 



permanent resident, breeding during May and June, making the 

 usual stick nest. The eggs, four or five in number, are broadish 

 oval in shape, pointed at one end, but vary much in color ; they 

 are generally greenish-blue or dingy-green, speckled, spotted and 

 dashed with umber-brown. 



They measure 1*44 by 1'06. The eggs of the Koel are almost 

 exclusively deposited in the nest of this crow. 



SUB -FAMILY, Dendrocittinae. 



Bill short, with the culmen much elevated and curved, quite 

 entire at the tip ; gonys straight ; commissure curved ; nares pro- 

 tected by dense, velvety short feathers ; wings short, rounded ; 

 tail long, graduated ; tarsus short, stout ; feet arboreal with the 

 lateral toes slightly unequal. 



GENUS, Dendrocitta, Gould. 



Bill short or moderate, compressed, well curved from the base ; 

 nostrils small, basal, concealed by short incumbent feathers ; 

 wings short, rounded ; fifth and sixth quills longest, fourth sub- 

 equal ; secondaries nearly as long as the primaries ; tail elongate, 

 wedge-shaped, with the two central feathers produced ; feet mode- 

 rate or short, arboreal ; middle-toe short ; lateral toes unequal ; 

 hind-toe and claw rather large. 



Dendrocitta rufa, -Scop. 



674. Jerdon's Birds of India, Vol. II, p. 314 ; Butler, Guzerat ; 

 Stray Feathers, Vol. Ill, p. 494 ; Deccan, Stray Feathers, Vol. 

 IX, p. 413 ; Murray's Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 177 ; 

 Swinhoe and Barnes, Central India ; Ibis, p. 128. 



THE COMMON INDIAN MAGPIE. 



Length, 16 to 18 ; expanse, 17 to 19 ; wing, 5'8 to 6'5 ; tail, 

 8 to 10-5; tarsus, 11 to 12 ; bill at gape, 1 '2 ; bill at front, 

 11. 



Bill black ; irides blood-red ; legs dark-slaty. 

 Whole head, neck, and breast, sooty-brown or blackish, deepest 

 on the forehead, chin, and throat, and passing into dusky-cinere- 

 , ous ; scapulars, back, and upper tail-coverts, dark ferruginous ; 

 u**J wing-coverts, and the outer web of the secondaries, light grey, 

 ^ almost whitish in some ; rest of the quills black ; tail ashy-grey, 

 the feathers all broadly tipped with black, least so on the centre 

 feathers ; beneath, from the breast, ferruginous or fulvous. 



This Tree Pie is, I believe, a permanent resident throughout 

 the district, but I have only been able to procure eggs in Sind. 

 During part of the hot weather they become very scarce, if not 

 ^\ altogether absent, and are then probably engaged in breeding in 

 some near but more suitable locality. 



In Sind they breed during May and June, almost always choos- 

 ing babool trees, placing the nest in a stoutish fork near the top ; 





