Later he writes:—­“On the 8th April I found another nest containing three half-fledged Magpies (D. leucogastra).  The nest was entirely composed of twigs, roughly but securely put together; interior diameter 3 inches and depth 2 inches, though there was a good-sized base or platform, say, 5 inches in diameter.  The nest was situated on the top fork of a sapling about 12 feet from the ground.  I tried to rear the young birds, but they all died within a week.”

The egg is very like that of our other Indian Tree-pies.  It is in shape a broad and regular oval, only slightly compressed towards one end.  The shell is fine and compact and is moderately glossy.  The ground is a creamy stone-colour.  It is profusely blotched and streaked with a somewhat pale yellowish brown, these markings being most numerous and darkest in a broad, irregular, imperfect zone round the large end, and it exhibits further a number of pale inky-purple clouds and blotches, which seem to underlie the brown markings, and which are chiefly confined to the broader half of the egg.  The latter measures 1.13 by 0.86.

18.  Dendrocitta himalayensis, Bl. The Himalayan Tree-pie.

Dendrocitta sinensis (Lath.) Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 316.  Dendrocitta himalayensis, Bl., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 676.

Common as is the Himalayan Tree-pie throughout the lower ranges of those mountains from which it derives its name, I personally have never taken a nest.

It breeds, I know, at elevations of from 2000 to 6000 feet, during the latter half of May, June, July, and probably the first half of August.

A nest in my museum taken by Mr. Gammie in Sikhim, at an elevation of about 2500 feet, out of a small tree, on the 30th of July, contained two fresh eggs.  It was a very shallow cup, composed entirely of fine stems, apparently of some kind of creeper, strongly but not at all compactly interwoven; in fact, though the nest holds together firmly, you can see through it everywhere.  It is about 6 inches in external diameter, and has an egg-cavity of about 4 inches wide and 1.5 deep.  It has no pretence for lining of any kind.

Of another nest which he took Mr. Gammie says:—­“I found a nest containing three fresh eggs in a bush, at a height of about 10 feet from the ground.  The nest was a very loose, shallow, saucer-like affair, some 6 or 7 inches in diameter and an inch or so in thickness, composed entirely of the dry stems and tendrils of creepers.  This was at Labdah, in Sikhim, at an elevation of about 3000 feet, and the date the 14th May, 1873.”  Later he writes:—­

“This Magpie breeds in the Darjeeling District in May, June, and July, most commonly at elevations between 2000 and 4000 feet.  It affects clear cultivated tracts interspersed with a few standing shrubs and bamboos, in which it builds.  The nest is generally placed from 6 to 12 feet from the ground in the inner part of the shrubs, and is made of pieces of creeper stems intermixed with a few small twigs loosely put together without any lining.  There is scarcely any cup, merely a depression towards the centre for the eggs to rest in.  Internally it measures about 4.8 in breadth by 1.5 in depth.  The eggs are three or four in number.