AZURE-WINGED MAGPIE. 141 
Tuts bird, the most beautiful member of its family, 
is an inhabitant of Spain, and, according to the cele- 
brated traveller Pallas, of Eastern Asia. It is found in 
the Crimea and in Japan, in the northern part of which 
empire it is common. It is not identical with the 
species found in Africa by Le Vaillant; and Degland 
says that specimens which he has examined from the 
Caucasus are larger, and have not the tail feathers 
tipped with white lke the Spanish individuals. 
In the “Reyue et Magazin de Zoologie,” for May, 
1858, M. Pucheran remarks that an individual of this 
species, presented to the National Collection of France, 
by M. Leclancher, from Nankin, has the first quill 
feather much shorter than specimens from Shang-Hai 
and Japan, and that the secondaries are shorter also. 
He asks ornithologists who have many specimens to 
compare, to note this fact, as he thinks if this is found 
to be a constant difference, that these Nankin specimens 
may constitute a new species. 
In its habits the Blue Magpie differs little from its 
congener, our well-known British Bird, but Temminck 
says that it more especially feeds upon insects. 
According to M. Riocour it builds in Spain in trees; 
its nest composed of slender sticks. He does not state 
the number of eggs, but we may presume they are the 
same as our Magpie—five or six, rarely seven, very 
rarely eight. 
In an interesting series of papers which he is pub- 
lishing on the Nests and Eggs of the South of France, 
in the “Revue de Zoologie,’? M. Moquin-Tandon has 
one upon the nidification of the Common Magpie, 
(March, 1858, p. 98,) which will bear one or two ex- 
tracts here, notwithstanding the subject is so familiar to 
every bird-nesting youngster in this country. 
