"The Magpie is not uncommon in the hills wherever there are trees, but
it seldom descends to the plains. They commence breeding in March, in
which month and April I have examined scores of nests, which in every
case were built in the 'Wun,' a species of _Pistacia_--the only tree
found hereabouts. A stout fork near the top is usually selected.
"The nest is shallow and cup-shaped, with a superstructure of twigs,
forming a canopy over the egg-cavity. The eggs, generally five in
number, are of the usual corvine green, blotched, spotted, and
streaked, as a rule, most densely about the large end with umber
mingled with sepia-brown. The average of thirty eggs is 1·25 by ·97."
Colonel Biddulph writes in 'The Ibis' that in Gilgit he took a nest
with five eggs, hard set, in a mulberry-tree at Nonval (5600 feet) on
the 9th May. Also another nest with three fresh eggs at Dayour(5200
feet) on the 25th May.
The eggs are typically rather elongated ovals, rather pointed towards
the small end, but shorter and broader varieties, and occasionally
ones with a pyriform tendency, occur. The ground is a greenish or
brownish white. In some eggs it has none, in others a slight gloss.
Everywhere the eggs are finely and streakly freckled with a brown that
varies from olive almost to sepia; about the large end the markings
are almost always most dense, forming there a more or less noticeable,
but quite irregular and undefined cap or zone. In one or two eggs dull
purplish-brown clouds or blotches underlie and intermingle with this
cap, and occasionally a small spot of this same tint may be noticed
elsewhere when the egg is closely examined.