66 CEATEEOPODID^E. 



of a light greenish blue, the tint being much the same as that of 

 the eggs of Acridotheres tristis. They lay from the commencement 

 of May to the end of June." 



Colonel (T. F. L. Marshall tells me that " the Streaked Laughing- 

 Thrush is very common at Mussoorie, where it is called by the 

 public the Robin of India. It breeds in July and August all about 

 Landour. The nest is cup-shaped, rather shallow, and loosely put 

 together, made of grass and fibre with some moss and a few dead 

 leaves twisted into it ; it is placed in a low bush or else on the 

 ground concealed among the grass-roots on the bill-side. The 

 eggs, three or four in number, are oval, rather large for the bird, 

 and of a pure light-blue colour without spots. I took eggs on the 

 26th and 28th July and on the 16th August." 



Sir E. C. Buck writes : " At Mutiauee, three marches north 

 of Simla, I found on the 28th June a nest in a bush on the side of a 

 scantily ' jungled ' hill. It was 2 feet from the ground, constructed 

 of grass and stalks externally, and lined with fibrous roots. It con- 

 tained three fresh eggs. The nest measured exterior diameter 

 6 inches, height exteriorly 4 inches ; the interior diameter was 3 

 inches, and the depth of the cavity 2 inches." 



The late Captain Beavan tells us that " on the 16th of August, 

 1866, I fouud a nest in the garden, in a rose-bush, with four pale 

 blue eggs in it, like those of Acridotheres tristis. The nest is a 

 large structure, firmly built of dry twigs, bark, sticks, ferns, and 

 roots. Another nest, with three eggs only, was found in a thick 

 clump of everlasting peas close to the ground on the 6th of Sep- 

 tember. The female sat very close, and this may have been the 

 second nest of the same pair that built the nest mentioned above, 

 as it was built not far from the first." 



Major 0. T. Bingham writes : " Being at Landour for a few 

 days in May I chanced on a nest of this bird, perhaps the com- 

 monest in the hills. It was placed under an overhanging bush on 

 the side of Lai Tiba hill, and on tlie ground, being constructed 

 rather loosely of pieces of the withered stem of some creeper, 

 intertwined with a quantity of oak-leaves, and lined with grass- 

 roots." 



The eggs, of which I must have seen some hundreds, as this is 

 the commonest Laughing-Thrush about both Mussoorie and Simla, 

 are typically regular and moderately broad ovals. Abnormally elon- 

 gated, spherical, and pyriform varieties occur ; some are nearly 

 round like a Kingfisher's, and I have seen one almost as slender 

 as a Swift's, but, as a rule, the eggs vary but little either in shape 

 or colour. They are perfectly spotless, moderately glossy, and of 

 a delicate pale greenish blue, which of course varies a little in 

 shade and intensity of colour, but which is very much paler on the 

 average than those of any of the Crateropi, and at the same time 

 less glossy. I am not at all sure whether T. lineatum is rightly asso- 

 ciated with species like T. cachinnans, T. varieyatum, and T. ery- 

 throcephalum, which all have spotted eggs. 



In length the eggs vary from 0*8 to 1*18, and in breadth from 



