three eggs, and a fourth was found in the parent bird. The nest was about 15 feet from the ground in a Kaggera tree (Acacia leucophloea) which stood on a bare sandy waste with no other tree within half a mile in any direction."

The eggs of the Punjab bird are, as might be expected, much the same as those of the European Raven. In shape they are moderately broad ovals, a good deal pointed towards the small end, but, as in the Oriole, greatly elongated varieties are very common, and short globular ones almost unknown. The texture of the egg is close and hard, but they usually exhibit little or no gloss. In the colour of the ground, as well as in the colour, extent, and character of the markings, the eggs vary surprisingly. The ground-colour is in some a clear pale greenish blue; in others pale blue; in others a dingy olive; and in others again a pale stone-colour. The markings are blackish brown, sepia and olive-brown, and rather pale inky purple. Some have the markings small, sharply defined, and thinly sprinkled: others are extensively blotched and streakily clouded; others are freckled or smeared over the entire surface, so as to leave but little, if any, of the ground-colour visible. Often several styles of marking and shades of colouring are combined in the same egg. Almost each nest of eggs exhibits some peculiarity, and varieties are endless. With sixty or seventy eggs before one, it is easy to pick out in almost every case all the eggs that belong to the same nest, and this is a peculiarity that I have observed in the eggs of many members of this family. All the eggs out of the same nest usually closely resemble each other, while almost any two eggs out of different nests are markedly dissimilar.

They vary from 1·72 to 2·25 in length, and from 1·2 to 1·37 in width; but the average of seventy-two eggs measured is 1·94 by 1·31.

Mandelli's men found four eggs of the larger Sikhim bird in Native
Sikhim, high up towards the snows, where they were shooting
Blood-Pheasants.

These eggs are long ovals, considerably pointed towards one end; the shell is strong and firm, and has scarcely any gloss. The ground-colour is pale bluish green, and the eggs are smudged and clouded all over with pale sepia; on the top of the eggs there are a few small spots and streaks of deep brownish black. They were found on the 5th March, and vary in length from 1·83 to 1·96, in breadth from 1·18 to 1·25.

3. Corvus corone, Linn. The Carrion-Crow.

Corvus corone, Linn., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 295; Hume, Rough Draft
N. & E. no. 659[A].

[Footnote A: Mr. Hume, at one time separated the Indian Carrion-Crow from Corvus corone under the name C. pseudo-corone. In his 'Catalogue' he re-unites them. I quite agree with him that the two birds are inseparable.—ED.]

The only Indian eggs of the Carrion-Crow which I have seen, and one of which, with the parent bird, I owe to Mr. Brooks, were taken by the latter gentleman on the 30th May at Sonamerg, Cashmere.

The eggs were broad ovals, somewhat compressed towards one end, and of the regular Corvine type—a pretty pale green ground, blotched, smeared, streaked, spotted, and clouded, nowhere very profusely but most densely about the large end, with a greenish or olive-brown and pale sepia. The brown is a brighter and greener, or duller and more olive, lighter or darker, in different eggs, and even in different parts of the same egg. The shell is fine and close, but has only a faint gloss.

The eggs only varied from 1·67 to 1·68 in length, and from 1·14 to 1·18 in breadth.

Whether this bird breeds regularly or only as a straggler in Cashmere we do not know; it is always overlooked and passed by as a "Common Crow." Future visitors to Cashmere should try and clear up both the identity of the bird and all particulars about its nidification.

4. Corvus macrorhynchus, Wagler. The Jungle-Crow.

Corvus culminatus, Sykes, Jerd. B, Ind. ii, p. 295,
Corvus levaillantii; Less., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 660.

The Jungle-Crow (under which head I include[A] C. culminatus, Sykes, C. intermedius, Adams, C. andamanensis, Tytler, and each and all of the races that occur within our limits) breeds almost everywhere in India, alike in the low country and in the hills both of Southern and Northern India, to an elevation of fully 8000 feet.

[Footnote A: See 'Stray Feathers,' vol. ii. 1874, p. 243, and 'Lahore to Yarkand,' p. 85.]

March to May is, I consider, the normal breeding-season; in the plains the majority lay in April, rarely later, and in the hills in May; but in the plains a few birds lay also in February.

The nest is placed as a rule on good-sized trees and pretty near their summits. In the plains mangos and tamarinds seem to be preferred, but I have found the nests on many different kinds of trees. The nest is large, circular, and composed of moderate-sized twigs; sometimes it is thick, massive, and compact; sometimes loose and straggling; always with a considerable depression in the centre, which is smoothly lined with large quantities of horsehair, or other stiff hair, grass, grass-roots, cocoanut-fibre, &c. In the hills they use any animal's hair or fur, if the latter is pretty stiff. They do not, according to my experience, affect luxuries in the way of soft down; it is always something moderately stiff, of the coir or horsehair type; nothing soft and fluffy. Coarse human hair, such as some of our native fellow-subjects can boast of, is often taken, when it can be got, in lieu of horsehair.

They lay four or five eggs. I have quite as often found the latter as the former number. I have never myself seen six eggs in one nest, but I have heard, on good authority, of six eggs being found.

Captain Unwin writes: "I found a nest of the Bow-billed Corby in the Agrore Valley, containing four eggs, on the 30th April. It was placed in a Cheer tree about 40 feet from the ground, and was made of sticks and lined with dry grass and hair."

Mr. W. Theobald makes the following remarks on the breeding of this bird in the Valley of Cashmere:—

"Lays in the third week of April. Eggs four in number, ovato-pyriform,
measuring from 1·6 to 1·7 in length and from 1·2 to 1·25 in breadth.
Colour green spotted with brown; valley generally. Nest placed in
Chinar and difficult trees."

Captain Hutton tells us that the Corby "occurs at Mussoorie throughout the year, and is very destructive to young fowls and pigeons; it breeds in May and June, and selects a tall tree, near a house or village, on which to build its nest, which is composed externally of dried sticks and twigs, and lined with grass and hair, which latter material it will pick from the backs of horses and cows, or from skins of animals laid out to dry. I have had skins of the Surrow (Noemorhaedus thar) nearly destroyed by their depredations. The eggs are three or four in number."

From the plains I have very few notes. I transcribe a few of my own.

"On the 11th March, near Oreyah, I found a nest of a Corby—good large stick nest, built with tamarind twigs, and placed fully 40 feet from the ground in the fork of a mango-tree standing by itself. The nest measured quite 18 inches in diameter and five in thickness. It was a nearly flat platform with a central depression 8 inches in diameter, and not more than 2 deep, but there was a solid pad of horsehair more than an inch thick below this. I took the mass out; it must have weighed half a pound. Four eggs much