108 
Birdie ill and about the Station, 
CROWS, &c. 
The Common Indian Crow, thank gcjodness, we do not get. 
Most Anglo Indian writers have a good deal to saj- about him, natur- 
ally' as he is not quite the sort of bird that allows one to forget his 
presence I have never heard of anyone taking home a hand-reared 
bird, but anyone requiring a pet of character and deviltry would find 
such a bird rather a revelation I fancy. He has no reason to be 
ashamed of his looks and lets you know it. We get his larger and 
less attractive relative, the Jungle Crow in small numbers. He nests 
in or near the compound every year, but may be dismissed as an 
" ornery cuss." 
The magnificent Blue Magpie {Uroeissa flavirostris) is very 
common higher up among the deodars and hill-oak, and to see a small 
party sweeping about at play in an open glade is a sight worth going 
some distance for. The nest is undomed, of sticks, and usually at the 
top of a pollarded oak, about 30 feet up and not often easy to spot. A 
pair nest every year on the Oreen Hill just outside the Station, where 
I have sometimes run down just-fledged youngsters, grand exercise it 
is too. I have never kept them long as one generally has to leave the 
Station in November for manoeuvres. They did very well, but even 
hand reared ones never seemed to become really tame and interesting, 
but I must own that they might have been given better opportunities 
of displaying their characteristics. I see them pretty freely advertised 
lately at £1 each, which struck me as very cheap having regard to 
their size, but of course their food during importation presents no 
difficulty. 
A party of four or five has been quite a feature of the compound 
this winter, the first time I have seen them actually in the Station. It 
is certainly a bird for the aviary rather than the cage, and I thorough- 
ly recommend it to those who like bright colours without gaudiness. 
Personally I confess to a weakness for gaudiness, and long tails and 
crests appeal to me greatly. A combination of these qualities prove 
almost irresistable, but, alas, I have to harden my heart against the 
charms of " soft-bills." I nmst also resist the temptation to digress 
here. I find that writing about birds is very like playing with plasti- 
cine ; most of the above was written some time ago and I feel a keen 
desire to talk about any birds rather than crows, in the same way does 
the plasticine elephant somehow become a crocodile or some other 
beast equally unlike the intended one. Now, having got in my di- 
gression after all. I proceed with a rough description : head, neck, and 
breast, black ; other lower parts, white ; other upper parts, purplish 
blue picked out with white ; tail above, blue tipped white ; bill, yellow. 
