DE^TDEOCITTA. 21

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 lalool 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 mea-
surement; it is well lined with khus grass."

Major Bingham says :—

" Common as is this bird I have only found one nest, and that
was at Allahabad on the 9th July, and contained one half-fledged
young one and an addled egg. The nest, which was placed at the
very top of a large mango-tree, was constructed of branches and
twigs of the same lined with fine grass-roots. The egg is a yellowish
white, thickly speckled, chiefly at the large end, with rusty. Length
1-10 by 0-82 in breadth."

Colonel Butler tells us that it "breeds in Sind, in the hot
weather. Mr. Doig took a nest containing three fresh eggs on the
1st May, 1878. The eggs, which seem to me to be remarkably
small for the size of the bird, are of the first type mentioned in
Bough Draft of' Nests and Eggs/ p. 422."

Lieut. H. E. Barnes says in his ' Birds of Bombay:'—" In Sind
they breed during May and June, always choosing babool trees,
placing the nest in a stoutish fork near the top ; they are composed
at the bottom of thorny twigs, which form a sort of foundation
upon which the true nest is built; the latter consists of fine twigs
lined with grass-roots; the nest is frequently of large size."

Mr. Gr. W. Vidal, writing of the South Konkan, says :—" Com-
mon about all well-wooded villages from coast to Ghats. Breeds
in April."

With regard to Cachar Mr. Inglis writes:—" This Magpie is
very common in all the neighbouring villages, but I have not often
seen it in the jungles. It remains all the year and breeds during
April and May."

The eggs are typically somewhat elongated ovals, a good deal
pointed towards the small end. They vary extraordinarily in
colour and character, as well as extent of markings, but, as remarked
when speaking of the Eaven, all the eggs out of the same nest
closely resemble each other, while the eggs of different nests are
almost invariably markedly distinct. There are, however, two
leading types—the one in which the markings are bright red,
brownish red, or pale pinkish purple; and the other in which they
are olive-brown and pale purplish brown. In the first type the
ground-colour is either pale salmon, or else very pale greenish
white, and the markings are either bold blotches, more or less con-
fluent at the large end, where they are far most numerous, and
only a few specks and spots towards the smaller end, or they are
spots and small blotches thickly distributed over the whole surface,