110 TURDID.E. 



Native Sikhim below Yendong on the 29th July, and was placed 

 in the fork of a slender tree at a height of about 8 feet from the 

 ground. The nest is an extremely regular massive cup, composed 

 entirely of green moss felted together very closely, and thickly 

 lined with fine black and brown roots. Its exterior diameter is 

 5 inches, its height 2-5 ; the cavity is about 3 inches in diameter, 

 and about 1*25 in depth. 



A single egg of this species sent me by Mr. Gammie is a mode- 

 rately elongated oval, with a pretty compact but almost entirely 

 glossless shell. The ground-colour is a very pale greenish white. 

 It is very richly blotched, splashed, streaked, and spotted with a 

 ferruginous brown, and besides this the whole of the larger end is 

 mottled with pale dull pinky purple. At the large end the mark- 

 ings are nearly confluent ; over the rest of the surface of the egg 

 they are for the most part bold, but thinly set. 



The egg measures 1-05 by 0-79. 



An egg of this species, however, obtained by Mr. Mandelli near 

 Darjeeling on the 29th of July is rather of the Blackbird type. 

 The egg is a moderately broad oval, a good deal pointed towards 

 the small end. The shell has only a faint gloss, whereas all the 

 Pittas have very round and very glossy eggs. The ground-colour 

 is a pale greenish white ; about the small end is a dense cap of 

 blotches, clouds, and spots of brownish red intermingled with 

 purple, and small spots, specks, and streaks almost exclusively of 

 the former colour are scattered about the rest of the surface of 

 the egg. 



The egg measures 1-06 by 0-82. 



706. Cochoa purpurea, Hodgs. The Purple Thrush. 



Cochoa purpurea, Hodgs., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 243 ; Hume, Rough 

 Draft N. $ E. no. 607. 



We have no very certain record of the nidification of the Purple 

 Thrush ; it is no doubt not uncommon in Kumaon, indeed is 

 common about Binsur, and there the late Mr. Home, C.S., took a 

 nest probably of this species. I do not myself feel certain about 

 the matter. Mr. Home was no ornithologist, and but little of an 

 oologist ; but Mr. Brooks was, 1 think, satisfied, and I quote what 

 he wrote to me at the time : 



"The egg of Cochoa purpurea in colouring exactly resembles that 

 of Merula boulboul, but is rather smaller, being 1'2 by 0-88. Home 

 thought the bird was the female of Orocetes erythrogaster, but I 

 have the female shot off the nest, and the nest, too, differs in mode 

 of lining from that of M. boulboul. I transcribe Home's note 

 about it : 



" ' Nest very solid, of moss, built on a horizontal bough, 10 or 12 

 feet from the ground, in a small tree in a ravine near the top of 

 Binsur. Interior nearly a true cup lined with white lichens, fine 

 moss, and principally black roots (very fine). The bird sits very 



