"This Crow, so common at Allahabad, is very scarce here at Delhi. In
fact I have only seen one pair.
"At Allahabad it lays in February and March. I have, however, only
found one nest, a rather loose structure of twigs and a few thick
branches with rather a deep depression in the centre. It was placed on
the very crown of a high toddy palm (_Borassus flabelliformis_) and
was unlined save for a wad of human hair, on which the eggs, two in
number, lay; these I found hard-set (on the 13th March); in colour
they were a pale greenish blue, boldly blotched, spotted, and speckled
with brown."
Colonel Butler has furnished me with the following note on the
breeding of the Jungle-Crow:--
"Belgaum, 12th March, 1880.--A nest containing four fresh eggs. It
consisted of a loose structure of sticks lined with hair and leaves,
and was placed at the top of and in the centre of a green-foliaged
tree in a well-concealed situation about 30 feet from the ground. 18th
March: Two nests, each containing three slightly incubated eggs; one
of the nests was quite low down in the centre of an 'arbor vitae'
about 12 feet from the ground. 31st March: Another nest containing
four slightly incubated eggs. Some of the latter nests were very
solidly built, and not so well Concealed. 11th April: Two more
nests, containing five incubated and three slightly incubated eggs
respectively; and on the 14th April a nest containing four slightly
incubated eggs. These birds, when the eggs are at all incubated, often
sit very close, especially if the nest is in an open situation, and in
many instances I have thrown several stones at the nest, and made as
much row as I could below without driving the old bird off, and I have
seen my nest-seeker within a few yards of the nest after climbing the
tree before the old bird flew off. On the 26th of April I found two
more nests, one containing four young birds just hatched, the other
three fresh eggs. On the 27th another nest containing three fresh
eggs, and on the 28th a nest of three fresh eggs. On the 5th May
two more nests containing four fresh and four incubated eggs
respectively."
"In the Nilghiris," writes Mr. Davison, "the Corby builds a coarse
nest of twigs, lined with cocoanut-fibre or dry grass high up in some
densely-foliaged tree. The eggs are usually four, often five, in
number. The birds lay in April and May."
Miss Cockburn again says:--"They build like all Crows on large
trees merely by laying a few sticks together on some strong branch,
generally very high up in the tree. I do not remember ever seeing more
than one nest on a tree at a time, so that they differ very much from
the Rook in that respect. They lay four eggs of a bluish green,
with dusky blotches and spots, and nothing can exceed the care and
attention they bestow on their young. Even when the latter are able
to leave their nests and take long flights, the parent birds will
accompany them as if to prevent their getting into mischief. The nests
are found in April and May."
Mr. J. Darling, jun., writes from the Nilghiris:--"I have found the
nest of this Crow pretty nearly all over the Nilghiris. The usual
number of eggs laid is four, but on one occasion, near the Quinine
Laboratory in the Government Gardens at Ooty, I procured six from one
nest. The breeding-season is from March to May, but I have taken eggs
as early as the 12th February."
From Ceylon, we hear from Mr. Layard that "about the villages the
Carrion-Crow builds its nest in the cocoanut-trees. In the jungles
it selects a tall tree, amid the upper branches of which it fixes
a framework of sticks, and on this constructs a nest of twigs
and grasses. The eggs, from three to five, are usually of a dull
greenish-brown colour, thickly mottled with brown, these markings
being most prevalent at the small end. They are usually laid in
January and February."
Mr. J.E. Cripps informs us that in Eastern Bengal it is "common and a
permanent resident. Occasionally found in the clumps of jungle that
are found about the country, which the next species never affects.
Breeds in the cold weather. I had noticed a pair building on a
Casuarina tree in my garden, about 50 feet off the ground, and on the
18th December, 1877, I took two perfectly fresh eggs from it; and
again on the 9th January, 1878, I found two callow young in this same
nest, the birds never having deserted it. The lining used for this
nest was principally jute-fibre--any tree is selected to build on; the
nests are placed from 15 to 50 feet off the ground. Some nests are
very well concealed, whereas others are quite exposed. On the 15th
January I found a nest about 15 feet up a small kudum tree, standing
in a large plain, and which had a lining of hair from the tail-tufts
of cows. There was one fresh egg, and a week later I got another fresh
egg from this very nest. From two to four eggs are in each nest."
Mr. Oates writes from Pegu:--"These birds all begin to build about the
same time, and I have taken numerous nests at the end of January. At
the end of February most nests contain young birds."
Mr. W. Theobald gives the following notes on the nidification of this
bird in Tenasserim and near Deoghur:--
"Lays in the third week of February and fourth week of March: eggs
ovato-pyriform; size 1·66 by 1·15; colour, dull sap-green much
blotched with brown; nest carefully placed in tall trees."
The eggs, though smaller, closely resemble, as might have been
expected, those of the Raven, but they are, I think, typically
somewhat broader and shorter. Almost every variety, as far as
coloration goes, to be found amongst those of the Raven, are found
amongst the eggs of the present species, and _vice versâ_; and for a
description of these it is only necessary to refer to the account of
the former species; but I may notice that amongst the eggs of _C.
macrorhynchus_ I have not yet noticed any so boldly blotched as is
occasionally the case with some of the eggs of the Raven, which remind
one not a little, so far as the character of the markings go, of eggs
of _Oedicnemus crepitans_ and _Esacus recurvirostris_. Like those
of the Raven the eggs exhibit little gloss, though here and there
a fairly glossy egg is met with. Eggs from various parts of the
Himalayas, of the plains of Upper India, of the hills and plains of
Southern India, do not differ in any respect. _Inter se_ the eggs from
each locality differ surprisingly in size, in tone of colour, and in
character of markings; but when you compare a dozen or twenty from
each locality, you find that these differences are purely individual
and in no degree referable to locality.
There are just as big eggs and just as small ones from Simla and
Kotegurh, from Cashmere, from Etawah, Bareilly, Futtehgurh, from
Kotagherry, and Conoor; all that one can possibly say is that perhaps
the Plains birds do on the _average_ lay a _shade larger_ eggs than
the Himalayan or Nilghiri ones.
Taking the eggs as a whole, I think that in size and shape they are
about intermediate between the eggs of the European Carrion-Crow and
Rook. But they vary, as I said, astonishingly in size, from 1·5 to
1·95 in length, and in breadth from 1·12 to 1·22, and I have one
perfectly spherical egg, a deformity of course, which measures 1·25 by
1·2.
The average of thirty Himalayan eggs is 1·73 by 1·18, of twenty Plains
eggs 1·74 by 1·2, and of fifteen Nilghiri eggs 1·7 by 1·18. I would
venture to predict that with fifty of each, there would not be a
hundredth of an inch between their averages.