20 CORVIDJG.

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 1 have also found it on neern
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 1| inch in depth. It was composed
exclusively of roots ; externally somewhat coarse, internally of
somewhat finer ones. It was very loosely put together."

Pive 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 neigh-
bourhood of Hansie.

1" Eour 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 oŁ 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 :—r" 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, accord-
ing 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 fai)it 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
l variety between the above two extremes; these are profusely
iblotched with russet-brown on a dirty-white ground.

'The second and third nests above referred to contained five
ggs; but the usual complement is not more than four. On the
|nd August, 1872,1 made the following note relative to the breeding