Colonel Legge writes in his ’Birds of Ceylon’:—­“This bird breeds during the cool season.  I found its nest in the Kandapolla jungles in January; it was situated in a fork of the top branch of a tall sapling, about 45 feet in height, and was a tolerably bulky structure, externally made of small sticks, in the centre of which was a deep cup 5 inches in diameter by 21/2 in depth, made entirely of fine roots; there was but one egg in the nest, which unfortunately got broken in being lowered to the ground.  It was ovate and slightly pyriform, of a faded bluish-green ground thickly spotted all over with very light umber-brown, over larger spots of bluish-grey.  It measured 0.98 inch in diameter by about 1.3 in length.”

16.  Dendrocitta rufa (Scop.). The Indian Tree-pie.

Dendrocitta rufa (Scop.), Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 314; Hume, Rough
Notes N. & E. no. 674.

The Indian Tree-pie breeds throughout the continent of India, alike in the plains and in the hills, up to an elevation of 6000 or 7000 feet.

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 I have also found it on neem 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 11/2 inch in depth.  It was composed exclusively of roots; externally somewhat coarse, internally of somewhat finer ones.  It was very loosely put together.”

Five 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 neighbourhood of Hansie.

“Four was the greatest number of eggs I found in any nest.