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.