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
|