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.