CISSA.	17
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._3 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 g^00^ 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. Jiimalay ens-is. 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 tine and compact, and
the eggs are mostly more or less glossy.
The eggs vary from 1-22 to 1-48 in'length, and from O8 to O96
in breadth ; but the average of twenty-seven eggs is-1'3 by 0*92.
14. Cissa cMnensis (Bodd.).    Tlie Green Magpie.
Cissa sinensis (jffms.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 312,
Cissa speciosa (Shaw), Hume, Rough Draft N. §• E. no. 073.
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
yol. i.	"	2