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. himalayensis.  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 fine and compact, and the eggs are mostly more or less glossy.

The eggs vary from 1.22 to 1.48 in length, and from 0.8 to 0.96 in breadth; but the average of twenty-seven eggs is 1.3 by 0.92.

14.  Cissa chinensis (Bodd.). The Green Magpie.

Cissa sinensis (Briss.), Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 312. 
Cissa speciosa (Shaw), Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 673.

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 and vegetable fibres, and lined inside with fine roots.  It lays four eggs, one of which is figured as a broad oval, a good deal pointed towards one end, with a pale stone-coloured ground freckled and mottled all over with sepia-brown, and measuring 1.27 by 0.89.

Mr. Oates writes:—­“In the Pegu Hills on the 19th April I found the nest of the Green Magpie, and shot the female off it.

“The nest was placed in a small tree, about 20 feet from the ground, in a nullah and well exposed to view.  The nest was neatly built, exteriorly of leaves and coarse roots, and finished off interiorly with finer fibres and roots; depth about 2 inches; inside diameter 6 inches.  Contained three eggs nearly hatched; all got broken; I have the fragments of one.  The ground-colour is greenish white, much spotted and freckled with pale yellowish-brown spots and dashes, more so at the larger end than elsewhere.”

Sundry fragments that reached me, kindly sent to me by Mr. Oates, had a dull white ground, very thickly freckled and mottled all over, as far as I could judge, with dull, pale, yellowish brown and purplish grey, the former preponderating greatly.  As to size and shape, this deponent sayeth nought.

Major Bingham writes from Tenasserim:—­“On the 18th April I found a nest of this most lovely bird placed at a height of 5 feet from the ground in the fork of a bamboo-bush.  It was a broad, massive, and rather shallow cup of twigs, roots, and bamboo-leaves outside, and lined with finer roots.  It contained three eggs of a pale greenish stone-colour, thickly and very minutely speckled with brown, which tend to coalesce and form a cap at the larger end.  I shot the female as she flew off the nest.”