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.”