The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 | Page 8

Nilghiri ones.
Taking the eggs as a whole, I think that in size and shape they are about intermediate between the eggs of the European Carrion-Crow and Rook. But they vary, as I said, astonishingly in size, from 1·5 to 1·95 in length, and in breadth from 1·12 to 1·22, and I have one perfectly spherical egg, a deformity of course, which measures 1·25 by 1·2.
The average of thirty Himalayan eggs is 1·73 by 1·18, of twenty Plains eggs 1·74 by 1·2, and of fifteen Nilghiri eggs 1·7 by 1·18. I would venture to predict that with fifty of each, there would not be a hundredth of an inch between their averages.
7. Corvus splendens, Vieill. _The Indian House-Crow_.
Corvus splendens, _Vieill. Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 298. Corvus impudicus, _Hodgs., Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 663.
Throughout India and Upper Burma the Common Crow resides and breeds, not ascending the hills either in Southern or Northern India to any great elevation, but breeding up to 4000 feet in the Himalayas.
The breeding-season par excellence is June and July, but occasional nests will be found earlier even in Upper India, and in Southern and Eastern India a great number lay in May. The nests are commonly placed in trees without much regard to size or kind, though densely foliaged ones are preferred, and I have just as often found several in the same tree as single ones. At times they will build in nooks of ruins or large deserted buildings, where these are in well inhabited localities, but out of many thousands I have only seen three or four nests in such abnormal positions.
The nest is placed in some fork, and is usually a ragged stick platform, with a central depression lined with grass-roots; but they are not particular as to material; I have found wool, rags, grass, and all kinds of vegetable fibre, and Mr. Blyth mentions that he has "seen several nests composed more or less, and two almost exclusively, of the wires taken from soda-water bottles, which had been purloined from the heaps of these wires commonly set aside by the native servants until they amount to a saleable quantity." Four is the normal number of eggs laid, but I often have found five, and on two occasions six. It is in this bird's nest that the Koel chiefly lays.
Writing of Nepal, Dr. Scully remarks:--"In the valley it lays in May and June; some twenty nests were once examined on the 23rd June, and half the number then contained young birds."
Major Bingham says:--"Very common, of course, both at Allahabad and at Delhi, and breeds in June, July, and beginning of August. At Allahabad it is much persecuted by the Koel (_Eudynamys orientalis_), every fourth or fifth nest that I found in some topes of mango-trees having one or two of the Koel's eggs."
Colonel Butler informs me that in Karachi it "begins to lay in the mangrove bushes in the harbour as early as the end of May;" and that it "breeds in the neighbourhood of Deesa in June, July, and August, commencing to build in the last week of May."
Later, he writes:--"Belgaum, 15th May, 1879. Found numerous nests in the native infantry lines in low trees, containing fresh and incubated eggs and young birds of all sizes. In the same locality, on the 30th March, 1880, I found a nest containing four young birds able to fly; the eggs must therefore have been laid quite as early as the middle of February, if not earlier."
Mr. G.W. Vidal writes:--"The Common Crow appears to have two broods in the year in our district (Ratnagiri), the first in April and May, and the second in November and December. In these four months I have found nests, eggs, and young birds in several different places in the district, and as yet at no other times. It is extremely improbable that there should be one breeding-season lasting from April to December, and I think I may State with certainty that the Crows do not breed at Ratnagiri during the months of heaviest rainfall, viz. July, August, and September. As their breeding in November and December appears to be exceptional, I subjoin a record of the few nests I examined.
"Nov. 22, 1878. Ratnagiri: One nest with 3 young birds. " " 1 fresh egg.
"Nov. 23, 1878. Ratnagiri: One nest with 1 fresh egg. " " 1 fresh egg.
"Dec. 4, 1878. Saugmeshwar.--One nest with 3 eggs hard-set; another nest probably containing young birds, but the Crows pecked so viciously at the man who was climbing the tree, that he got frightened and came down again without reaching the nest. Crows with sticks and feathers in their mouths are flying about all day.
"Dec. 5, 1878. Aroli.--Found a nest with a Crow sitting in it; no one to climb