100 TURDID-ffi. 



thickly speckled with minute reddish-brown spots. The average 

 dimensions are 0-95 inch in length by 0-77 in breadth." 



The eggs strike one as rather small for the size of the bird. In 

 shape they are moderately broad ovals, a good deal pointed towards 

 one end. The shell is fine and fairly glossy, and some eggs have 

 a really fine gloss. 



The general character of the egg is very MeruKne. The ground- 

 colour, very little of which in some eggs is visible, is a pale bluish 

 or greenish white, and it is thickly freckled, blotched, and streaked 

 with more or less brownish or purplish red. The markings are 

 usually most dense at the large end, where they often form a bold 

 confluent cap. and at this larger end a few lilac spots are commonly 

 intermingled with the red markings. Some eggs have all the 

 markings fine and very thickly spread over the whole surface. 

 Others have them thick, bold, and blotchy all over the large end 

 half, and only a few small spots scattered over the other half, and 

 between these two types intermediate forms occur. 



The eggs measure from 0-9 to 1*08 in length, and from 0*71 to 

 0-79 in breadth, but the average of ten eggs is 0-99 by 0-75. 



686. G-eocichla citrina (Lath.). The Orange-headed Ground- 

 Thrush. 



Geocichla citrina (Lath.},Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 517 ; Hume, Rough Draft 

 N. Sf E. no. 355. 



The Orange-headed Ground-Thrush breeds in the Himalayas 

 from Murree to Assam, at elevations of from 1500 to 5000 feet, 

 laying from the end of April to nearly the end of June. They 

 build a rather broad, cup-shaped nest of moss, grass, and very 

 fine twigs, or fir-needles, lined with fine moss-roots, and at times 

 a little hair, measuring some 5 inches in diameter, and with a 

 cavity about 35 inches broad and 1*75 deep. The nest is placed 

 in eome fork of a moderate-sized tree, in the case of all that I 

 have seen, at no great height from the ground. 



They lay three, and often four eggs, and one nest found below 

 Koregurh contained five. 



Captain Hutton, years ago, recorded the following note in 

 regard to this species : " Arrives at Mussoorie at an elevation of 

 5000 feet about the end of May, and returns to the plains in 

 autumn. It breeds in June, placing the nest in the forky branches 

 of lofty trees, such as oak and wild cherry. Externally it is some- 

 times composed of coarse dry grasses, somewhat neatly interwoven 

 on the sides but hanging down in long straggling ends from the 

 bottom. Within this is a layer of green moss, and another of fine 

 dry woody stalks of small plants, and a scanty lining at the bottom 

 of fine roots. The eggs are three to four in number, pale greenish, 

 freckled with rufous; the spots of that colour confluent, and 

 forming a patch at the larger end. These are not rock-lovers at 

 all, but true forest birds, building in trees, and taking their food 



