Chapter 3

I only know positively of Jackdaws breeding in one district within our limits, viz. Cashmere; but I have seen it in the hills in summer, as far east as the Valley of the Beas, and it must breed everywhere in suitable localities between the two.

In the cold season of course the Jackdaw descends into the plains of the North-west Punjaub, is very numerous near the foot of the hills, and has been found in cis-Indus as far east as Umballa, and south at Ferozpoor, Jhelum, and Kalabagh. In Trans-Indus it extends unto the Dehra Ghazi Khan district.

I have never taken its eggs myself.

Mr. W. Theobald makes the following remarks on its nidification in the Valley of Cashmere:--

"Lays in the first week of May; eggs four, five, and six in number, ovato-pyriform and long ovato-pyriform, measuring from 1·26, 1·45, to 1·60 in length, and from 0·9 to 1·00 in breadth; colour pale, clear bluish green, dotted and spotted with brownish black; valley generally; in holes of rocks, beneath roofs, and in tall trees."

Dr. Jerdon says:--"It builds in Cashmere in old ruined palaces, holes in rocks, beneath roofs of houses, and also in tall trees, laying four to six eggs, pale bluish green, clotted and spotted with brownish black."

Mr. Brookes writes:--"The Jackdaw breeds in Cashmere in all suitable places: holes in old Chinar (Plane) trees, and in house-walls, under the eaves of houses, &c. I did not note the materials of the nests, but these will be the same as in England."

The eggs of this species are typically rather elongated ovals, somewhat compressed towards one end. The shell is fine, but has only a faint gloss. The ground-colour is a pale greenish white, but in some eggs there is very little green, while in a very few the ground is quite a bright green. The markings, sometimes very fine and close, sometimes rather bold and thinly set, consist of specks or spots of deep blackish brown, olive-brown, and pale inky purple. In most eggs all these colours are represented, but in some eggs the olive-, in others the blackish-brown is almost entirely wanting. In some eggs the markings are very dense towards the large end, in others they are pretty uniformly distributed over the whole surface; in some they are very minute and speckly, in others they average the tenth of an inch in diameter.

The eggs that I possess vary from 1·34 to 1·52 in length, and from 0·93 to 1·02 in breadth; but the average of sixteen eggs was 1·4 by 0·98.

10. Pica rustica (Scop.). _The Magpie_.

Pica bactriana, _Bp., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E_, no. 668 bis.

The Magpie breeds, we know, in Afghanistan, and also throughout Ladak from the Zojee-la Pass right up to the Pangong Lake, but it breeds so early that one is never in time for the eggs. The passes are not open until long after they are hatched.

Captain Hutton says this bird "is found all the year round from Quettah to Girishk, and is very common. They breed in March, and the young are fledged by the end of April. The nest is like that of the European bird, and all the manners of the Afghan Magpie are precisely the same. They may be seen at all seasons."

From Afghanistan, Lieut. H.E. Barnes writes:--

"The Magpie is not uncommon in the hills wherever there are trees, but it seldom descends to the plains. They commence breeding in March, in which month and April I have examined scores of nests, which in every case were built in the 'Wun,' a species of _Pistacia_--the only tree found hereabouts. A stout fork near the top is usually selected.

"The nest is shallow and cup-shaped, with a superstructure of twigs, forming a canopy over the egg-cavity. The eggs, generally five in number, are of the usual corvine green, blotched, spotted, and streaked, as a rule, most densely about the large end with umber mingled with sepia-brown. The average of thirty eggs is 1·25 by ·97."

Colonel Biddulph writes in 'The Ibis' that in Gilgit he took a nest with five eggs, hard set, in a mulberry-tree at Nonval (5600 feet) on the 9th May. Also another nest with three fresh eggs at Dayour(5200 feet) on the 25th May.

The eggs are typically rather elongated ovals, rather pointed towards the small end, but shorter and broader varieties, and occasionally ones with a pyriform tendency, occur. The ground is a greenish or brownish white. In some eggs it has none, in others a slight gloss. Everywhere the eggs are finely and streakly freckled with a brown that varies from olive almost to sepia; about the large end the markings are almost always most dense, forming there a more or less noticeable, but quite irregular and undefined cap or zone. In one or two eggs dull purplish-brown clouds or blotches underlie and intermingle with this cap, and occasionally a small spot of this same tint may be noticed elsewhere when the egg is closely examined.

12. Urocissa occipitalis (Bl.). _The Red-billed Blue Magpie_.

Urocissa sinensis (_Linn._), _Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 309. Urocissa occipitalis (_Bl_.), _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E_. no. 671.

I have never myself found the nest of the Red-billed Blue Magpie; although it does breed sparingly as far east as Simla and Kotegurh, it is not till you cross the Jumna that it is abundant. East of the Jumna, about Mussoorie, Teeree, Grurhwal, Kumaon, and in Nepal, it is common.

From Mussoorie Captain Hutton tells us that "this species occurs at Mussoorie throughout the year. It breeds at an elevation of 5000 feet in May and June, making a loose nest of twigs externally and lined with roots. The nest is built on trees, sometimes high up, at others about 8 or 10 feet from the ground. The eggs are from three to five, of a dull greenish ash-grey, blotched and speckled with brown dashes confluent at the larger end, the ends nearly equal in size. It is very terrene in its habits, feeding almost entirely on the ground."

Colonel G.F.L. Marshall remarks:--

"The Red-billed Blue Magpie is, as far as I know, an early breeder at Naini Tal; common as the bird is I have only found one nest and that on the 24th April; it was a shallow slenderly built structure of fine roots, chiefly of maiden-hair fern, in a rough outer casing of twigs, placed on a horizontal bough overhanging a nullah about fifteen feet from the ground. The tree had moderately dense foliage, and was about twenty-five feet high in a small clump on a hillside covered with low scrub at 5000 feet elevation above the sea. Around the nest several small boughs and twigs grew out, and being very slight in structure it was not easy to see. The old bird sat very close. There were six eggs in the nest about half-incubated: in two of them the markings were densest at the small end. The egg-cavity was 6 inches in diameter by about 1¼ deep. On the 5th June I saw old birds accompanied by young ones able to fly, but without the long tails."

The eggs of this species much resemble those of the European Magpie, but are considerably smaller. They are broad, rather perfect ovals, somewhat elongated and pointed in many specimens. They exhibit but little gloss. The ground-colour varies much, but in all the examples that I possess, which I owe to Captain Hutton's kindness, it is either of a yellowish-cream, pale _café au lait_ or buff colour, or pale dull greenish. The ground is profusely blotched, spotted, and streaked (the general character of the markings being striations parallel to the major axis), with various shades of reddish and yellowish, brown and pale inky purple. The markings vary much in intensity as well as in frequency, some being so closely set as to hide the greater part of the ground-colour; but in the majority of the eggs they are more or less confluent at the large end, where they form a comparatively dark, irregular blotchy zone.

The eggs vary from 1·25 to 1·4 in length, and from 0·89 to 0·96 in breadth; but the average of 11 eggs is 1·33 by 0·93.

Major Bingham, referring to the Burmese Magpie, which has been separated under by the name of _U. magnirostris_, says:--

"This species I have only found common in the Thoungyeen Valley. Elsewhere it seemed to me scarce. Below I give a note about its breeding.

"I have found three nests of this handsome Magpie--two on the bank of the Meplay choung on the 14th April, 1879, and 5th March, 1880, respectively, and one near Meeawuddy on the Thoungyeen river on the 19th March, 1880.

"The first contained three, the second four, and the third two eggs.

"These are all of the same type, dead white, with pale claret-coloured clashes and spots rather washed-out looking, and lying chiefly at the large end. One egg has the spots thicker at the small end. They are moderately broad ovals, and vary from 1·19 to 1·35 in length, and from 0·93 to 1·08 in breadth.

"The nests were all alike, thick solid structures of twigs and branches, lined with finer twigs about 8 or 9 inches in diameter, and placed invariably at the top of tall straight saplings of teak, pynkado (_Xylia dolabriformis_), and other trees at a height of about 15 feet from the ground."

All the eggs of the Burmese bird that I have seen, nine taken by Major Bingham, were of one and the same type. The eggs broad ovals, in most cases pointed towards the small end. The shell fine, but as a rule with scarcely any perceptible gloss. The ground-colour a delicate creamy white. The markings moderate-sized blotches, spots, streaks, and specks, as a rule comparatively dense about one, generally the large, end, where only as a rule any at all considerable sized blotches occur, elsewhere more or less sparsely set, and generally of a speckly character. The markings are of two colours: brown, varying in shade in different eggs, olive-yellowish, chocolate, and a grey, equally varying in different eggs from pale purple to pale sepia. None of my eggs of the Himalayan bird (I have unfortunately but few of these) correspond at all closely with these.

13. Urocissa flavirostris (Bl.). _The Yellow-billed Blue Magpie_.

Urocissa flavirostris (_Bl.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 310; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 672.

The Yellow-billed Blue Magpie breeds throughout the lower ranges of the Himalayas in well-wooded localities from Hazara to Bhootan, and very likely further east still, from April to August, mostly however, I think, laying in May. The nest, which is rather coarse and large, made of sticks and lined with fine grass or grass-roots, is, so far as my experience goes, commonly placed in a fork near the top of some moderate-sized but densely foliaged tree.

I have never found a nest at a lower elevation than about 5000 feet; as a rule they are a good deal higher up.

They lay from four to six eggs, but the usual number is five.

Colonel C.H.T. Marshall writes:--"The Yellow-billed Blue Magpie breeds commonly about Murree. I have never seen the bird below 6000 feet in the breeding-season. They do not commence laying till May, and I have taken eggs nearly fresh as late as the 15th August. I do not think the bird breeds twice, as the earliest eggs taken were found on the 10th May.

"They build in hill oaks as a rule, the height of the nest from the ground varying much, some being as low as 10 feet, others nearer 30 feet. The hen bird sits close, and sometimes (when the nest is high up) does not even leave the nest when the tree is struck below. The nest is a rough structure built close to the trunk, externally consisting of twigs and roots and lined with fibres. The egg-cavity is circular and shallow, not at all neatly lined. The outer part of the nest is large compared to what I should call the true nest, and consists of a heap of twigs, &c. like what is gathered together for the platform of a Crow's nest.

"The eggs, which are four in number, vary in length from 1·45 to 1·25, and in breadth from 0·9 to 0·75. The ordinary type is an egg a good deal pointed at the thinner end. The ground-colour is greenish white, blotched and freckled with ruddy brown, with a ring at the larger end of confluent spots. The young birds are of a very dull colour until after the first month. The normal number of eggs laid appears to be four."

Captain Cock wrote to me:--"_U. flavirostris_ is common at Dhurmsala, but the nest is rather difficult to find. I have only taken six in three years. It is usually placed amongst the branches of the hill oak, where it has been polled, and the thickly growing shoots afford a good cover; but sometimes it is on the top of a small slender sapling. The nest is a good-sized structure of sticks with a rather deep cup lined with dried roots; in fact, it is very much like the nest of _Garrulus lanceolatus_, only larger and much deeper. They generally lay four eggs, which differ much in colour and markings."

Dr. Jerdon says:--"I had the nest and eggs brought me once. The nest was made of sticks and roots. The eggs, three in number, were of a greenish-fawn colour very faintly blotched with brown."

The eggs are of the ordinary Indian Magpie type, scarcely, if at all, smaller than those of _U. occipitalis_, and larger than the average of eggs of either _Dendrocitta rufa_ or _D. himalayensis_. Doubtless all kinds of varieties occur, as the eggs of this family are very variable; but I have only seen two types--in the one the ground is a pale dingy yellowish stone-colour, profusely streaked, blotched, and mottled with a somewhat pale brown, more or less olivaceous in some eggs, the markings even in this type being generally densest towards the large end, where they form an irregular mottled cap: in the other type the ground is a very pale greenish-drab colour; there is a dense confluent raw-sienna-coloured zone round the large end, and only a few spots and specks of the same colour scattered about the rest of the egg. All kinds of intermediate varieties occur. The texture of the shell is fine and compact, and the eggs are mostly more or less glossy.

The eggs vary from 1·22 to 1·48 in length, and from 0·8 to 0·96 in breadth; but the average of twenty-seven eggs is 1·3 by 0·92.

14. Cissa chinensis (Bodd.). _The Green Magpie_.

Cissa sinensis (_Briss._), _Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 312. Cissa speciosa (_Shaw_), _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 673.

According to Mr. Hodgson's notes the Green Magpie breeds in Nepal in the lower valleys and in the Terai from April to July. The nest is built in clumps of bamboos and is large and cup-shaped, composed of sticks and leaves, coated externally with bamboo-leaves and vegetable fibres, and lined inside with fine roots. It lays four eggs, one of which is figured as a broad oval, a good deal pointed towards one end, with a pale stone-coloured ground freckled and mottled all over with sepia-brown, and measuring 1·27 by 0·89.

Mr. Oates writes:--"In the Pegu Hills on the 19th April I found the nest of the Green Magpie, and shot the female off it.

"The nest was placed in a small tree, about 20 feet from the ground, in a nullah and well exposed to view. The nest was neatly built, exteriorly of leaves and coarse roots, and finished off interiorly with finer fibres and roots; depth about 2 inches; inside diameter 6 inches. Contained three eggs nearly hatched; all got broken; I have the fragments of one. The ground-colour is greenish white, much spotted and freckled with pale yellowish-brown spots and dashes, more so at the larger end than elsewhere."

Sundry fragments that reached me, kindly sent to me by Mr. Oates, had a dull white ground, very thickly freckled and mottled all over, as far as I could judge, with dull, pale, yellowish brown and purplish grey, the former preponderating greatly. As to size and shape, this deponent sayeth nought.

Major Bingham writes from Tenasserim:--"On the 18th April I found a nest of this most lovely bird placed at a height of 5 feet from the ground in the fork of a bamboo-bush. It was a broad, massive, and rather shallow cup of twigs, roots, and bamboo-leaves outside, and lined with finer roots. It contained three eggs of a pale greenish stone-colour, thickly and very minutely speckled with brown, which tend to coalesce and form a cap at the larger end. I shot the female as she flew off the nest."

Major Bingham subsequently found another nest in Tenasserim, about which he says:--

"Crossing the Wananatchoung, a little tributary of the Thoungyeen, by the highroad leading from Meeawuddy to the sources of the Thoungyeen, I found in a small thorny tree on the 8th April a nest of the above bird--a great, firmly-built but shallow saucer of twigs, 6 feet or so above the ground, and lined with fine black roots. It contained three fresh eggs of a dingy greyish white, thickly speckled chiefly at the large end, where it forms a cap, with light purplish brown. The eggs measure 1·25 x 0·89, 1·18 x 0·92, and 1·20 x 0·90."

Mr. James Inglis notes from Cachar:--"This Jay is rather rare; it frequents low quiet jungle. In April last a Kuki brought me three young ones he had taken from a nest in a clump of tree-jungle; he said the nest was some 20 feet from the ground and made of bamboo-leaves and grass."

A nest of this species taken below Yendong in Native Sikhim, on the 28th April, contained four fresh eggs. It was placed on the branches of a medium-sized tree at a height of about 12 feet from the ground; it was a large oval saucer, 8 inches by 6, and about 2·5 in depth, composed mainly of dry bamboo-leaves, bound firmly together with fine stems of creepers, and was lined with moderately fine roots; the cavity was 5 inches by 4, and about 1 in depth.

The eggs received from Major Bingham, as also others received from Sikhim, where they were procured by Mr. Mandelli on the 21st and 28th of April, are rather broad ovals, somewhat pointed towards the small end. The shell is fine, but has only a little gloss. The ground-colour is white or slightly greyish white, and they are uniformly freckled all over with very pale yellowish and greyish brown. The frecklings are always somewhat densest at the large end, where in some eggs they form a dull brown cap or zone. In some eggs the markings are everywhere denser, in some sparser, so that some eggs look yellower or browner, and others paler.

The eggs are altogether of the _Garruline_ type, not of that of the _Dendrocitta_ or _Urocissa_ type. I have eggs of _G. lanceolatus_, that but for being smaller precisely match some of the _Cissa_ eggs. Jerdon is, I think, certainly wrong in placing _Cissa_ between _Urocissa_ and _Dendrocitta_, the eggs of which two last are of the same and quite a distinct type[A].

[Footnote A: I am responsible, and not Mr. Hume, for calling this bird a Magpie. Jerdon calls it a Jay, but places it among the Magpies, which is, I consider, its proper position, notwithstanding the colour of its eggs.--ED.]

The eggs vary from 1·15 to 1·26 in length, and from 0·9 to 0·95 in breadth, but the average of eight is 1·21 by 0·92.

15. Cissa ornata (Wagler). _The Ceylonese Magpie_.

Cissa ornata (_Wagl._), _Hume, Cat._ no. 673 bis.

Colonel Legge writes in his 'Birds of Ceylon':--"This bird breeds during the cool season. I found its nest in the Kandapolla jungles in January; it was situated in a fork of the top branch of a tall sapling, about 45 feet in height, and was a tolerably bulky structure, externally made of small sticks, in the centre of which was a deep cup 5 inches in diameter by 2½ in depth, made entirely of fine roots; there was but one egg in the nest, which unfortunately got broken in being lowered to the ground. It was ovate and slightly pyriform, of a faded bluish-green ground thickly spotted all over with very light umber-brown, over larger spots of bluish-grey. It measured 0·98 inch in diameter by _about_ 1·3 in length."

16. Dendrocitta rufa (Scop.). _The Indian Tree-pie_.

Dendrocitta rufa (_Scop._), _Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 314; _Hume, Rough Notes N. & E._ no. 674.

The Indian Tree-pie breeds throughout the continent of India, alike in the plains and in the hills, up to an elevation of 6000 or 7000 feet.

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 Hansi (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 I have also found it on neem and sisso trees. It is usually built with dry twigs as a foundation, very commonly 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 1½ 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 neighbourhood 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, according 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 brown_ 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, I made the following note relative to the breeding of this bird:--The bird flew off immediately we approached the tree, and never appeared again. The nest viewed from below looked larger; this is owing to dry _babool_ twigs or rather small branches (some of them having thorns from an inch to 2 inches long!) having been used as a foundation, and actually encircling the nest, no doubt by way of protection against vermin; some of these thorny twigs were a foot long, and they had to be removed piecemeal before the nest proper could be got at. The egg-cavity is deep, measuring 5 inches in depth by 4 in breadth inside measurement; it is well lined with khus grass."

Major Bingham says:--