35. Dendrocitta bayleyi

(35) Dendrocitta bayleyi Tytler.
THE ANDAMAN TREE-PIE.
Dendrocitta bayleyi, Fauna B. I., Birds, 2nd od. vol. i, p. 55.
Very little has been known of these birds breeding until com¬paratively recently. Eggs which were first sent me as of this bird proved to be those of the Burmese Hill-Pie which the taker did not know was found in the island. The only nests really authen¬ticated are one taken by Osmaston, with three eggs, on the 27th May, 1907, and one taken by Messrs. Anderson and Wickham in May 1910. Osmaston describes the nest as “a flimsy cup-shaped structure of bents and fine sticks, lined rootlets, 15 feet from the ground in a small thickly foliaged sapling growing in forest.”
All four eggs are exactly alike with a pale creamy-yellow ground with numerous small blotches of light brown and inky grey, rather denser at the larger end but in none forming a definite cup. In shape they are short broad ovals and they measure between 25.9 x 19.1 and 24.9 x 20.3 mm.