Chapter 2

The nest is placed as a rule on good-sized trees and pretty near their summits. In the plains mangos and tamarinds seem to be preferred, but I have found the nests on many different kinds of trees. The nest is large, circular, and composed of moderate-sized twigs; sometimes it is thick, massive, and compact; sometimes loose and straggling; always with a considerable depression in the centre, which is smoothly lined with large quantities of horsehair, or other stiff hair, grass, grass-roots, cocoanut-fibre, &c. In the hills they use _any_ animal's hair or fur, if the latter is pretty stiff. They do not, according to my experience, affect luxuries in the way of soft down; it is always something moderately stiff, of the coir or horsehair type; nothing soft and fluffy. Coarse human hair, such as some of our native fellow-subjects can boast of, is often taken, when it can be got, in lieu of horsehair.

They lay four or five eggs. I have quite as often found the latter as the former number. I have never myself seen six eggs in one nest, but I have heard, on good authority, of six eggs being found.

Captain Unwin writes: "I found a nest of the Bow-billed Corby in the Agrore Valley, containing four eggs, on the 30th April. It was placed in a Cheer tree about 40 feet from the ground, and was made of sticks and lined with dry grass and hair."

Mr. W. Theobald makes the following remarks on the breeding of this bird in the Valley of Cashmere:--

"Lays in the third week of April. Eggs four in number, ovato-pyriform, measuring from 1·6 to 1·7 in length and from 1·2 to 1·25 in breadth. Colour green spotted with brown; valley generally. Nest placed in Chinar and difficult trees."

Captain Hutton tells us that the Corby "occurs at Mussoorie throughout the year, and is very destructive to young fowls and pigeons; it breeds in May and June, and selects a tall tree, near a house or village, on which to build its nest, which is composed externally of dried sticks and twigs, and lined with grass and hair, which latter material it will pick from the backs of horses and cows, or from skins of animals laid out to dry. I have had skins of the Surrow (_Noemorhaedus thar_) nearly destroyed by their depredations. The eggs are three or four in number."

From the plains I have very few notes. I transcribe a few of my own.

"On the 11th March, near Oreyah, I found a nest of a Corby--good large stick nest, built with tamarind twigs, and placed fully 40 feet from the ground in the fork of a mango-tree standing by itself. The nest measured quite 18 inches in diameter and five in thickness. It was a nearly flat platform with a central depression 8 inches in diameter, and not more than 2 deep, but there was a solid pad of horsehair more than an inch thick below this. I took the mass out; it must have weighed half a pound. Four eggs much incubated.

"_Etawah, 14th March_.--Another nest at the top of one of the huge tamarind-trees behind the Asthul: could not get up to it. A boy brought the nest down; it was not above a foot across, and perhaps 3 inches deep; cavity about 6 inches in diameter, thickly lined with grass-roots, inside which again was a coating of horsehair perhaps a rupee in thickness; nest swarming with vermin. Eggs five, quite fresh; four eggs normal; one quite round, a pure pale slightly greenish blue, with only a few very minute spots and specks of brown having a tendency to form a feeble zone round the large end. Measures only 1·25 by 1·2. Neither in shape, size, nor colour is it like a Corby's egg; but it is not a Koel's, or that of any of our parasitic Cuckoos, and I have seen at home similar pale eggs of the Rook, Hooded Crow, Carrion-Crow, and Raven.

"_Bareilly, May 10th_.--Three fresh eggs in large nest on a mango-tree. Nest as usual, but lined with an immense quantity of horsehair. We brought this home and weighed it; it weighed six ounces, and horsehair is very light."

Major C.T. Bingham writes:--

"This Crow, so common at Allahabad, is very scarce here at Delhi. In fact I have only seen one pair.

"At Allahabad it lays in February and March. I have, however, only found one nest, a rather loose structure of twigs and a few thick branches with rather a deep depression in the centre. It was placed on the very crown of a high toddy palm (_Borassus flabelliformis_) and was unlined save for a wad of human hair, on which the eggs, two in number, lay; these I found hard-set (on the 13th March); in colour they were a pale greenish blue, boldly blotched, spotted, and speckled with brown."

Colonel Butler has furnished me with the following note on the breeding of the Jungle-Crow:--

"Belgaum, 12th March, 1880.--A nest containing four fresh eggs. It consisted of a loose structure of sticks lined with hair and leaves, and was placed at the top of and in the centre of a green-foliaged tree in a well-concealed situation about 30 feet from the ground. 18th March: Two nests, each containing three slightly incubated eggs; one of the nests was quite low down in the centre of an 'arbor vitae' about 12 feet from the ground. 31st March: Another nest containing four slightly incubated eggs. Some of the latter nests were very solidly built, and not so well Concealed. 11th April: Two more nests, containing five incubated and three slightly incubated eggs respectively; and on the 14th April a nest containing four slightly incubated eggs. These birds, when the eggs are at all incubated, often sit very close, especially if the nest is in an open situation, and in many instances I have thrown several stones at the nest, and made as much row as I could below without driving the old bird off, and I have seen my nest-seeker within a few yards of the nest after climbing the tree before the old bird flew off. On the 26th of April I found two more nests, one containing four young birds just hatched, the other three fresh eggs. On the 27th another nest containing three fresh eggs, and on the 28th a nest of three fresh eggs. On the 5th May two more nests containing four fresh and four incubated eggs respectively."

"In the Nilghiris," writes Mr. Davison, "the Corby builds a coarse nest of twigs, lined with cocoanut-fibre or dry grass high up in some densely-foliaged tree. The eggs are usually four, often five, in number. The birds lay in April and May."

Miss Cockburn again says:--"They build like all Crows on large trees merely by laying a few sticks together on some strong branch, generally very high up in the tree. I do not remember ever seeing more than one nest on a tree at a time, so that they differ very much from the Rook in that respect. They lay four eggs of a bluish green, with dusky blotches and spots, and nothing can exceed the care and attention they bestow on their young. Even when the latter are able to leave their nests and take long flights, the parent birds will accompany them as if to prevent their getting into mischief. The nests are found in April and May."

Mr. J. Darling, jun., writes from the Nilghiris:--"I have found the nest of this Crow pretty nearly all over the Nilghiris. The usual number of eggs laid is four, but on one occasion, near the Quinine Laboratory in the Government Gardens at Ooty, I procured six from one nest. The breeding-season is from March to May, but I have taken eggs as early as the 12th February."

From Ceylon, we hear from Mr. Layard that "about the villages the Carrion-Crow builds its nest in the cocoanut-trees. In the jungles it selects a tall tree, amid the upper branches of which it fixes a framework of sticks, and on this constructs a nest of twigs and grasses. The eggs, from three to five, are usually of a dull greenish-brown colour, thickly mottled with brown, these markings being most prevalent at the small end. They are usually laid in January and February."

Mr. J.E. Cripps informs us that in Eastern Bengal it is "common and a permanent resident. Occasionally found in the clumps of jungle that are found about the country, which the next species never affects. Breeds in the cold weather. I had noticed a pair building on a Casuarina tree in my garden, about 50 feet off the ground, and on the 18th December, 1877, I took two perfectly fresh eggs from it; and again on the 9th January, 1878, I found two callow young in this same nest, the birds never having deserted it. The lining used for this nest was principally jute-fibre--any tree is selected to build on; the nests are placed from 15 to 50 feet off the ground. Some nests are very well concealed, whereas others are quite exposed. On the 15th January I found a nest about 15 feet up a small kudum tree, standing in a large plain, and which had a lining of hair from the tail-tufts of cows. There was one fresh egg, and a week later I got another fresh egg from this very nest. From two to four eggs are in each nest."

Mr. Oates writes from Pegu:--"These birds all begin to build about the same time, and I have taken numerous nests at the end of January. At the end of February most nests contain young birds."

Mr. W. Theobald gives the following notes on the nidification of this bird in Tenasserim and near Deoghur:--

"Lays in the third week of February and fourth week of March: eggs ovato-pyriform; size 1·66 by 1·15; colour, dull sap-green much blotched with brown; nest carefully placed in tall trees."

The eggs, though smaller, closely resemble, as might have been expected, those of the Raven, but they are, I think, typically somewhat broader and shorter. Almost every variety, as far as coloration goes, to be found amongst those of the Raven, are found amongst the eggs of the present species, and _vice versâ_; and for a description of these it is only necessary to refer to the account of the former species; but I may notice that amongst the eggs of _C. macrorhynchus_ I have not yet noticed any so boldly blotched as is occasionally the case with some of the eggs of the Raven, which remind one not a little, so far as the character of the markings go, of eggs of _Oedicnemus crepitans_ and _Esacus recurvirostris_. Like those of the Raven the eggs exhibit little gloss, though here and there a fairly glossy egg is met with. Eggs from various parts of the Himalayas, of the plains of Upper India, of the hills and plains of Southern India, do not differ in any respect. _Inter se_ the eggs from each locality differ surprisingly in size, in tone of colour, and in character of markings; but when you compare a dozen or twenty from each locality, you find that these differences are purely individual and in no degree referable to locality.

There are just as big eggs and just as small ones from Simla and Kotegurh, from Cashmere, from Etawah, Bareilly, Futtehgurh, from Kotagherry, and Conoor; all that one can possibly say is that perhaps the Plains birds do on the _average_ lay a _shade larger_ eggs than the Himalayan or Nilghiri ones.

Taking the eggs as a whole, I think that in size and shape they are about intermediate between the eggs of the European Carrion-Crow and Rook. But they vary, as I said, astonishingly in size, from 1·5 to 1·95 in length, and in breadth from 1·12 to 1·22, and I have one perfectly spherical egg, a deformity of course, which measures 1·25 by 1·2.

The average of thirty Himalayan eggs is 1·73 by 1·18, of twenty Plains eggs 1·74 by 1·2, and of fifteen Nilghiri eggs 1·7 by 1·18. I would venture to predict that with fifty of each, there would not be a hundredth of an inch between their averages.

7. Corvus splendens, Vieill. _The Indian House-Crow_.

Corvus splendens, _Vieill. Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 298. Corvus impudicus, _Hodgs., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 663.

Throughout India and Upper Burma the Common Crow resides and breeds, not ascending the hills either in Southern or Northern India to any great elevation, but breeding up to 4000 feet in the Himalayas.

The breeding-season _par excellence_ is June and July, but occasional nests will be found earlier even in Upper India, and in Southern and Eastern India a great number lay in May. The nests are commonly placed in trees without much regard to size or kind, though densely foliaged ones are preferred, and I have just as often found several in the same tree as single ones. At times they will build in nooks of ruins or large deserted buildings, where these are in well inhabited localities, but out of many thousands I have only seen three or four nests in such abnormal positions.

The nest is placed in some fork, and is usually a ragged stick platform, with a central depression lined with grass-roots; but they are not particular as to material; I have found wool, rags, grass, and all kinds of vegetable fibre, and Mr. Blyth mentions that he has "seen several nests composed more or less, and two almost exclusively, of the wires taken from soda-water bottles, which had been purloined from the heaps of these wires commonly set aside by the native servants until they amount to a saleable quantity." Four is the normal number of eggs laid, but I often have found five, and on two occasions six. It is in this bird's nest that the Koel chiefly lays.

Writing of Nepal, Dr. Scully remarks:--"In the valley it lays in May and June; some twenty nests were once examined on the 23rd June, and half the number then contained young birds."

Major Bingham says:--"Very common, of course, both at Allahabad and at Delhi, and breeds in June, July, and beginning of August. At Allahabad it is much persecuted by the Koel (_Eudynamys orientalis_), every fourth or fifth nest that I found in some topes of mango-trees having one or two of the Koel's eggs."

Colonel Butler informs me that in Karachi it "begins to lay in the mangrove bushes in the harbour as early as the end of May;" and that it "breeds in the neighbourhood of Deesa in June, July, and August, commencing to build in the last week of May."

Later, he writes:--"Belgaum, 15th May, 1879. Found numerous nests in the native infantry lines in low trees, containing fresh and incubated eggs and young birds of all sizes. In the same locality, on the 30th March, 1880, I found a nest containing four young birds able to fly; the eggs must therefore have been laid quite as early as the middle of February, if not earlier."

Mr. G.W. Vidal writes:--"The Common Crow appears to have two broods in the year in our district (Ratnagiri), the first in April and May, and the second in November and December. In these four months I have found nests, eggs, and young birds in several different places in the district, and as yet at no other times. It is extremely improbable that there should be one breeding-season lasting from April to December, and I think I may State with certainty that the Crows _do not_ breed at Ratnagiri during the months of heaviest rainfall, viz. July, August, and September. As their breeding in November and December appears to be exceptional, I subjoin a record of the few nests I examined.

"Nov. 22, 1878. Ratnagiri: One nest with 3 young birds. " " 1 fresh egg.

"Nov. 23, 1878. Ratnagiri: One nest with 1 fresh egg. " " 1 fresh egg.

"Dec. 4, 1878. Saugmeshwar.--One nest with 3 eggs hard-set; another nest probably containing young birds, but the Crows pecked so viciously at the man who was climbing the tree, that he got frightened and came down again without reaching the nest. Crows with sticks and feathers in their mouths are flying about all day.

"Dec. 5, 1878. Aroli.--Found a nest with a Crow sitting in it; no one to climb the tree."

Mr. Benjamin Aitken has favoured me with the following interesting note:--"I send you an account of a nest of the Common Crow, found in October, 1874, in the town of Madras. My attention was first directed to the remarkable pair of Crows to which the nest belonged, in the end of July, when they were determinedly and industriously attempting to fix a nest on the top ledge of a pillar in the verandah of the 'Madras Mail' office. The ledge was so narrow that one would have thought the Sparrow alone of all known birds would have selected it for a site; and even the Sparrow only under the condition of a writing or toilet-table being underneath to catch the lime, sticks, straws, rags, feathers, and other innumerable materials that commonly strew the ground below a Sparrow's nest. I was told that the Crows had been at their task for two months before I saw them, and I then watched them till nearly the end of October. The celebrated spider that taught King Bruce a lesson in patience was eager and fitful compared with this pair of Crows. I kept no account of the number of times their structure was blown down, only to be immediately begun again; but as there was a good deal of rain and wind at that season, in addition to the regular sea-breeze, it was a common thing for the sticks to be cleared off day after day. But perseverance will often achieve seeming impossibilities, and, moreover, the Crows worked more indefatigably as the season went on, and used to run up their nest with great rapidity (no doubt, also, they improved by their practice); so that several times the structure was completed, or nearly completed, before being swept to the ground, though how it remained in its place for a moment seems a mystery; and twice I saw a broken egg among the scattered _débris_. At length, about the middle of September, the Crows determined to try the pillar at the other end of the verandah. By this time, of course, all the Crows in Madras had long brought up their broods and sent them adrift; and what they thought to see an eccentric pair of their own species forsaking society, and _building_ in September, may be imagined. The new site selected differed in no respect from the old one, and was no less exposed to the wind; but the birds had grown expert at building 'castles in the air,' and now met with fewer mishaps. In the first week of October the hen bird was sitting regularly, so on the 8th of the month I sent a man up by a ladder, and he held up four eggs for me to look at. It fairly seemed after this that patience was to have its reward, but on the night of the 20th there came a storm of wind and rain, and when I went to the office in the morning, the nest was lying on the ground, with two young Crows in it, with the feathers just beginning to appear. The other two, I suppose, had fallen over into the street. And thus ended one of the most persevering attempts on record to overcome a difficulty insurmountable from the first. The old birds thought it time now to stop operations, and frequented the office no more.

"I am told by a gentleman in the 'Mail' office that the Crows have built in that verandah regularly for five or six years past, but nobody seems to have watched the nests. I am, therefore, hopeful that the attempt will be repeated this year, in which case I will keep a diary of all that takes place."

He writes subsequently:--"I sent you a long story in my last batch of notes about two eccentric Crows that succeeded in building a nest upon the narrow ledge of a pillar in the verandah of my office, several months after all well-conducted Crows had sent out their progeny to battle with the world. I mentioned to you that they were said to build in that unnatural place every year, and I said that I would watch them this year.

"Well, would you believe it? on the 26th July, when every other Crow's nest in Madras had hard-set eggs, or newly-hatched young ones, these two indefatigable birds set methodically to work to construct a nest on the south pillar--the one where all their earlier efforts were made last year, but not the one on which they succeeded in fixing their nest. They worked all the 26th and 27th, putting up sticks as fast as they fell down, and then desisted till the 4th August, when they began operations on the opposite (north) pillar with redoubled energy. Meeting with no better success they left off operations after a couple of days' fruitless labour. Yesterday (after a delay of five weeks) they set to work on the south pillar again and succeeded in raising a great pile, which, however, was ignominiously blown down in the afternoon. To-day they are continuing their work indefatigably."

Mr. J.E. Cripps has the following note in his list of birds of Furreedpore, Eastern Bengal:--"Very common, and a permanent resident, affecting the haunts of man. They build and lay in May. The Koel lays its eggs in this bird's nest. In April, 1876, I saw two nests in the compound of the house in which I lived at Howrah, which were made _entirely_ of galvanized wire, the thickest piece of which was as thick as a slate pencil. How the birds managed to bend these thick pieces of wire was a marvel to us; not a stick was incorporated with the wires, and the lining of the nest (which was of the ordinary size) was jute and a few feathers. The railway goods-yard, which was alongside the house, supplied the wire, of which there was ever so much lying about there."

Typically the eggs may, I think, be said to be rather broad ovals, a good deal pointed towards the small end; but really the eggs vary so much in shape that, even with nearly two hundred before me, it is difficult to decide what is really the most typical form. Pyriform, elongated, and globular varieties are common; long Cormorant-shaped eggs and perfect ovals are not uncommon. As regards the colour of the ground, and colour, character, and extent of marking, all that I have above said of the Raven's eggs applies to those of this species, but varieties occur amongst those of the latter which I have not observed in those of the former. In some the ground is a very pale pure bluish green, in others it is dingier and greener. All are blotched, speckled, and streaked more or less with somewhat pale sepia markings; but in some the spots and specks are a darker brown and, as a rule, well defined, and there is very little streaking, while in others the brown is pale and muddy, the markings ill-defined, and nearly the whole surface of the egg is freckled over with smudgy streaks. Sometimes the markings are most numerous at the large end, sometimes at the small; no two eggs are exactly alike, and yet they have so strong a family resemblance that there is no possibility of mistaking them. Generally the markings as a whole are less bold, and the general colour of a large body of them laid together is bluer and brighter than that of a similar drawer-full of Ravens' eggs. As a whole, too, they are more glossy. I have one egg before me bright blue and almost as glossy as a Mynah's, thickly blotched and speckled at the broad end, and thinly spotted elsewhere with olive-green, blackish-brown, and pale purple. Another egg, a pale pure blue, is spotless, except at the large end, where there is a conspicuous cap of olive-brown and olive-green spots and speckles, and there are numerous other abnormal varieties which I have not observed amongst the Ravens.

On the whole the eggs do _not_ vary much in size; out of one hundred and ninety-seven, one hundred and ninety-five varied between 1·28 and 1·65 in length, and 0·98 and 1·15 in breadth. One egg measures only 1·2 in length, and one is only 0·96 in breadth; but the average of the whole is 1·44 by 1·06.

8. Corvus insolens, Hume. _The Burmese House-Crow_.

Corvus insolens; _Hume; Hume, Cat._ no. 663 bis.

The Burmese House-Crow breeds pretty well over the whole of Burma.

Mr. Oates, writing from Pegu, says:--"Nesting operations are commenced about the 20th March. The nest and eggs require no separate description, for both appear to be similar to those of _C. splendens_."

When large series of the eggs of both these species are compared, those of the Burmese Crow strike one as _averaging_ somewhat brighter coloured, otherwise they are precisely alike and need no separate description.

9. Corvus monedula, Linn. _The Jackdaw_.

Colaeus monedula (_Linn._), _Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 302. Corvus monedula, _Linn., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 665.