GARRULAX. 147 



Nidification. As with so many of the common birds, the 

 breeding season of this Laughing-Thrush is very extended, eggs 

 being laid from the end of March to the beginning of August, the 

 latter being second broods. Tliey breed from ])ractically the level 

 of the plains up to 5,000 feet, but between 1,000 and 2,500 feet is 

 the favourite altitude. The nests are broad, but shallow, cups, 

 rather loosely put together and are generally composed for the 

 main part of grass and bamboo leaves, bound together with stems 

 of plants, tendrils, roots and fern-rachides and mixed more or less 

 with dead leaves, dried moss, etc. The lining is of coarse roots, 

 fern-rachides and tendrils. They may be placed in almost any 

 position from low down in scrub and brambles to 20 feet up in 

 small saplings, but a common site is some thorny, and not too 

 dense, bush in light undergrowth. 



Fig. 28. — Head of G. I. hucolophmi. 



The eggs number from tliree to five, two or six only very rai'ely. 

 They are a pure china- white in colour, hard and glossy with 

 numerous pits, a feature shown in no other egg of this family. In 

 shape they are very spherical, and but for their stoutness and the 

 pits might easily be mistaken for Kingfishers' eggs. 200 eggs 

 average 28' 1 x 22-8 mm., and the extremes in length and breadth 

 are 30-0 X 23-4 mm., 28-7 X 24-1 mm. and 250 X 21-0 mm. 



Habits. The White-crested Laughing-Thrush is extremely 

 abundant in the lower hills in the North and South of the Brahma- 

 putra. It is one of the noisiest of birds, always calling to one 

 another in notes of varying degrees of harshness, the big flocks in 

 which it congregates every few mituites indulging in an outburst 

 of cackling and laughing calls in which each member tries to out- 

 shout the rest. These outbursts are often accouipanied by 

 dancing and flapping of wings as the birds clamber about the 

 undergrowth or work along the ground underneath. They are 

 not shy birds, and if one keeps quiet they show far more interest 

 in each other and in their food than they do in the intruder. 

 Moreover, they are most inquisitive birds and must investigate 

 carefully everything they cannot understand. They may be found 

 in flocks even in the breeding season, and a bird seated on her 



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