The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma/Birds/Order Passeres/Family Corvidæ/Genus Platysmurus

by Edward Charles Stuart Baker

 

Genus PLATYSMURUS Reich., 1760.

The genus Platysmurus contains two species, one of which is resident in Tenasserim whilst the other inhabits Borneo. In many ways this genus connects the typical Magpies and the typical Jays.

The bill is very much curved and shorter than the head and the bristles covering the nostrils are numerous and stiff but short. The feathers of the crown of the head are very harsh. The tail is of no great length but well graduated. The sexes are alike and the young resemble the adults.

 

(38) Platysmurus leucopterus.

The White-winged Jay.

Glaucopis leucopterus Temm., Pl. Col., No. 265 (1824) (Sumatra).

Platismurus leucopterus. Blanf. & Oates, i, p. 37.

Vernacular names. None recorded.

Description. The whole plumage black; the terminal halves of the larger upper wing-coverts and a large patch on the exterior webs of some of the outer secondaries white; the forehead crested and the feathers stiff.

In some specimens the smaller wing-coverts are narrowly margined with white, and this probably means immaturity.

Colours of soft parts. Bill, legs, feet and claws black; irides lake-red to crimson. (Davison.)

Measurements. Length about 400 to 410 mm.; wing about 190 to 200 mm.; tail about 200 to 220 mm.; tarsus 35 to 38 mm; culmen about 35 mm.

Distribution. Tenasserim, S.W. Siam, Malay Peninsula and Sumatra.

Nidification. The nests were first obtained by Davison and again quite recently by Messrs. Hopwood and Mackenzie in Tenasserim. They are rough, heavy affairs of twigs, roots, etc., cup-shaped with a shallow internal hollow. They are placed in tall bushes, small trees or palms some 6 to 8 feet from the ground. The eggs number two or three and are exactly like big eggs of Cissa chinensis. They measure about 33·5 × 23·1 mm.

The breeding season appears to be March and April.

Fig. 14.—Head of P. leucopterus.

Habits. According to Davison "this species keeps entirely to the forests, going about usually in parties of from four to six. They have a deep, rolling, metallic note, which they continually utter as they move from tree to tree. I have never seen them on the ground; they probably get their food, which consists of insects, and, occasionally at any rate, of fruit, amongst the trees. They are excessively restless and always on the move, flying from tree to tree, generally at a considerable height and continually uttering their harsh, metallic call. They restrict themselves to the evergreen forests, never, that I am aware, coming into the gardens or open ground."

Hopwood says they are common about Tavoy and that they are not shy.