TROCHALOPTERUM. 175 
Description. A black streak over the eye from lores to nape; 
lores grey or fulvous-brown ; sides of head olivaceous or rufous ; 
upper tail-coverts chestnut, remaining upper plumage rufescent 
olive-brown, each feather with a terminal lunate black tip ; in 
birds which have the lores and sides of the head olivaceous the 
crown is ashy ; wing-coverts chestnut, dusky internally ; primary- 
coverts dusky edged with black; outer web of outer primaries 
pale blue, inner primaries black; secondaries chestnut at the 
base; remainder of wing black, the later quills minutely tipped 
white ; lower plumage fulvous, each feather with a terminal black 
bar; under tail-coverts and thighs castaneous. 
Birds with grey crowns have the tail deep black, the others 
have it bronze-colour with a chestnut tip. 
The variations in colour seem due to neither sex nor age. I 
have found all in both sexes and in pairs breeding together, and 
they appear to form one of those curious dimorphic colorations, 
the necessity for the evolution of which naturalists have not yet 
been able to detect. 
Colours of soft parts. Legs and feet pale flesh to fleshy-brown ; 
bill horny black, paler and greyer at tip and on base of lower 
mandible; iris pale greenish or bluisk white ; glaucous-brown or 
dull brown, these latter probably only in young. 
Measurements. Length about 250 to 260 mm.; wing 93 to 
99mm.; tail about 100 mm.; tarsus about 37 mm.; culmen 
abeut 20 mm. 
Distribution. The Himalayas from Nepal to the Kachin Hilis ; 
hill-ranges North of the Brahmaputra to N. Arrakan, and Chin 
Hills and Shan States. 
Nidification. The bird breeds at all heights between 3,000 and 
6,000 feet and in Nepal (vide Hodgson) as low as 2,000. The nest is 
the usual bulky cup in shape, fairly compact, and made principally 
of dead leaves intermixed with roots, tendrils and grass, and lined 
with roots. It is alwavs placed low down in some thick bush or 
tangle of creepers, often within a foot or two of the ground. The 
eggs, two or three in number, are s otless blue-green, the texture 
very smooth and fine but soft and Palmost glossless. Fifty eges 
average 29°4 x 20°7 mm. f 
Habits. The Blue-winged Laughing-Thrush is a bird of humid 
forests at a comparatively low level. In the hills South of the 
Brahmaputra it is most common between 3,000 and 5,000 feet, 
and seems to haunt the banks of streams and rivers far more than 
the other species of this genus do. It goes about both in pairs 
and in small family parties, and is conversational rather than 
noisy, many of its notes being very rich and full. Its flight is 
very weak and ill-sustained, but it is as strong and clever on its 
feet as the rest of the family. 
