TEOCHALOPTERUM. 55 



From Sikhim a nest, said to belong to this species, has been 

 recently sent me. It was found below Darjeeling in July, and 

 was placed in a double fork of the branchlets of a medium-sized 

 tree. It is a moderately deep cup, composed almost entirely of 

 dry, coarser and finer, tendrils of creepers, and is lined with a 

 some black moss-roots and a few scraps of dead leaves. It con- 

 tained three fresh eggs. 



Xumerous nests of this species subsequently sent me from Sikhim 

 are all of the same type, all moderately deep cups composed entirely 

 of creeper-tendrils, the cavity only being lined with fine black roots. 

 They appear from the specimens before me to be quite sui generis 

 and unlike those of any of its congeners. No grass, no dead leaves, 

 no moss seems to be employed ; nothing but the tendrils of some 

 creeper. The nests appear to be always placed at the fork, where 

 three, four, or more snoots diverge, and to be generally more or 

 less like inverted cones, measuring say 4 to 5 inches in height, and 

 about the same in breadth at the top, while the cavities are about 

 3 inches in diameter and To to 2 in depth. The nests appear to have 

 been found at very varying heights from the ground from 5 to 15 

 feet, and at elevations of from 3000 to 5000 feet. They appear 

 to have contained three fresh or more or less incubated eggs. 



The eggs were found in Sikhim on different dates between 25th 

 May and 8th September. 



Exceptional as the coloration of the eggs of this species may 

 seem, there is no doubt that they are pure white. The shell 

 is thin and fragile, but has generally a decided gloss, and the 

 eggs are typically elongated ovals, obtuse-ended, and more or 

 less pyriform or cylindrical. The eggs vary from 0-92 to 1-13 

 in length, and from 0'75 to 0*8 in breadth, but the average of 

 eleven eggs is 1-06 by 0-77 nearly. 



82. Trochalopterum erythrocephalnm (Vig.). The Red-headed 

 Laughing-Thrush. 



Trockalopteron ervthrocephalum ( Vig.}, Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 43; Hume, 

 Rough Draft N. Sf E. no. 415. 



From Kumaon westwards, at any rate as far as the valley of the 

 Beas, the Red-headed Laughing-Thrush is, next to T. lineatum, the 

 most common species of the genus. It lays in May and June, at 

 elevations of from 4000 to 7000 feet, building on low branches of 

 trees, at a height of from 3 to 10 feet from the ground. 



The nests are composed chiefly of dead leaves bound round into 

 a deep cup with delicate fronds of ferns and coarse and fine grass, 

 the cavities being scantily lined with fine grass and moss-roots. 

 It is difficult by any description to convey an adequate idea of the 

 beauty of some of these nests the deep red-brown of the withered 

 ferns, the black of the grass- and moss-roots, the pale yellow of the 

 broad flaggy grass, and the straw-yellow of some of the finer grass- 

 stems, all blended together into an artistic wreath, in the centre of 



