All the eggs of the Burmese bird that I have seen, nine taken by Major
Bingham, were of one and the same type. The eggs broad ovals, in most
cases pointed towards the small end. The shell fine, but as a rule
with scarcely any perceptible gloss. The ground-colour a delicate
creamy white. The markings moderate-sized blotches, spots, streaks,
and specks, as a rule comparatively dense about one, generally the
large, end, where only as a rule any at all considerable sized
blotches occur, elsewhere more or less sparsely set, and generally of
a speckly character. The markings are of two colours: brown, varying
in shade in different eggs, olive-yellowish, chocolate, and a grey,
equally varying in different eggs from pale purple to pale sepia. None
of my eggs of the Himalayan bird (I have unfortunately but few of
these) correspond at all closely with these.


13. Urocissa flavirostris (Bl.). _The Yellow-billed Blue Magpie_.

Urocissa flavirostris (_Bl.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 310; _Hume, Rough
Draft N. & E._ no. 672.

The Yellow-billed Blue Magpie breeds throughout the lower ranges of
the Himalayas in well-wooded localities from Hazara to Bhootan, and
very likely further east still, from April to August, mostly however,
I think, laying in May. The nest, which is rather coarse and large,
made of sticks and lined with fine grass or grass-roots, is, so far
as my experience goes, commonly placed in a fork near the top of some
moderate-sized but densely foliaged tree.

I have never found a nest at a lower elevation than about 5000 feet;