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."
Major Bingham subsequently found another nest in Tenasserim, about
which he says:--
"Crossing the Wananatchoung, a little tributary of the Thoungyeen, by
the highroad leading from Meeawuddy to the sources of the Thoungyeen,
I found in a small thorny tree on the 8th April a nest of the above
bird--a great, firmly-built but shallow saucer of twigs, 6 feet or so
above the ground, and lined with fine black roots. It contained three
fresh eggs of a dingy greyish white, thickly speckled chiefly at the
large end, where it forms a cap, with light purplish brown. The eggs
measure 1·25 x 0·89, 1·18 x 0·92, and 1·20 x 0·90."
Mr. James Inglis notes from Cachar:--"This Jay is rather rare; it
frequents low quiet jungle. In April last a Kuki brought me three
young ones he had taken from a nest in a clump of tree-jungle; he said
the nest was some 20 feet from the ground and made of bamboo-leaves
and grass."
A nest of this species taken below Yendong in Native Sikhim, on the
28th April, contained four fresh eggs. It was placed on the branches
of a medium-sized tree at a height of about 12 feet from the ground;
it was a large oval saucer, 8 inches by 6, and about 2·5 in depth,
composed mainly of dry bamboo-leaves, bound firmly together with fine
stems of creepers, and was lined with moderately fine roots; the
cavity was 5 inches by 4, and about 1 in depth.
The eggs received from Major Bingham, as also others received from
Sikhim, where they were procured by Mr. Mandelli on the 21st and 28th
of April, are rather broad ovals, somewhat pointed towards the small
end. The shell is fine, but has only a little gloss. The ground-colour
is white or slightly greyish white, and they are uniformly freckled
all over with very pale yellowish and greyish brown. The frecklings
are always somewhat densest at the large end, where in some eggs
they form a dull brown cap or zone. In some eggs the markings are
everywhere denser, in some sparser, so that some eggs look yellower or
browner, and others paler.
The eggs are altogether of the _Garruline_ type, not of that of the
_Dendrocitta_ or _Urocissa_ type. I have eggs of _G. lanceolatus_,
that but for being smaller precisely match some of the _Cissa_ eggs.
Jerdon is, I think, certainly wrong in placing _Cissa_ between
_Urocissa_ and _Dendrocitta_, the eggs of which two last are of the
same and quite a distinct type[A].
[Footnote A: I am responsible, and not Mr. Hume, for calling this bird
a Magpie. Jerdon calls it a Jay, but places it among the Magpies,
which is, I consider, its proper position, notwithstanding the colour
of its eggs.--ED.]
The eggs vary from 1·15 to 1·26 in length, and from 0·9 to 0·95 in
breadth, but the average of eight is 1·21 by 0·92.