"Common as is this bird I have only found one nest, and that was at
Allahabad on the 9th July, and contained one half-fledged young one
and an addled egg. The nest, which was placed at the very top of a
large mango-tree, was constructed of branches and twigs of the same
lined with fine grass-roots. The egg is a yellowish white, thickly
speckled, chiefly at the large end, with rusty. Length 1·10 by 0·82 in
breadth."
Colonel Butler tells us that it "breeds in Sind, in the hot weather.
Mr. Doig took a nest containing three fresh eggs on the 1st May, 1878.
The eggs, which seem to me to be remarkably small for the size of the
bird, are of the first type mentioned in Rough Draft of 'Nests and
Eggs,' p. 422."
Lieut. H.E. Barnes says in his 'Birds of Bombay:'--"In Sind they breed
during May and June, always choosing babool trees, placing the nest
in a stoutish fork near the top; they are composed at the bottom of
thorny twigs, which form a sort of foundation upon which the true nest
is built; the latter consists of fine twigs lined with grass-roots;
the nest is frequently of large size."
Mr. G.W. Vidal, writing of the South Konkan, says:--"Common about all
well-wooded villages from coast to Ghâts. Breeds in April."
With regard to Cachar Mr. Inglis writes:--"This Magpie is very common
in all the neighbouring villages, but I have not often seen it in the
jungles. It remains all the year and breeds during April and May."
The eggs are typically somewhat elongated ovals, a good deal pointed
towards the small end. They vary extraordinarily in colour and
character, as well as extent of markings, but, as remarked when
speaking of the Raven, all the eggs out of the same nest closely
resemble each other, while the eggs of different nests are almost
invariably markedly distinct. There are, however, two leading
types--the one in which the markings are bright red, brownish red, or
pale pinkish purple; and the other in which they are olive-brown and
pale purplish brown. In the first type the ground-colour is either
pale salmon, or else very pale greenish white, and the markings are
either bold blotches, more or less confluent at the large end, where
they are far most numerous, and only a few specks and spots towards
the smaller end, or they are spots and small blotches thickly
distributed over the whole surface, or they are streaky smudges
forming a mottled ill-defined cap at the large end, and running down
thence in streaks and spots longitudinally; in the other type the
ground-colour is greenish white or pale yellowish stone-colour, and
the character of the markings varies as in the preceding type. Besides
these there are a few eggs with a dingy greyish-white ground, with
very faint, cloudy, ill-defined spots of pale yellowish brown pretty
uniformly distributed over the whole surface. In nine eggs out of
ten, the markings are most dense at the large end, where they form
irregular, more or less imperfect caps or zones. A few of the eggs are
slightly glossy.
Of the salmon-pink type some specimens in their coloration resemble
eggs of _Dicrurus longicaudatus_ and some of our Goatsuckers, while of
those with the greenish-white ground-colour some strongly recall the
eggs of _Lanius lahtora_.
In length the eggs vary from 1·0 to 1·3, and in breadth from 0·78 to
0·95; but the average of forty-four eggs is 1·17 by 0·87.