150 NOTES ON THE NIDIFICATION 



[The Blue-Winged Ground Thrush occurs and breeds 

 throughout British Burmah, from Tongkoo to the Pag-chan 

 Estuary, and from the coast of Arracan to the Kareenee, keeping 

 as a rule, however, in the thin tree jungle that everywhere 

 skirts the bases of the innumerable larger and smaller hill ranges 

 that intersect the Province. It is not as a rule, I believe, a 

 permanent resident, but suddenly makes its appearance 

 between the early part of April and the end of May, arriving 

 earlier at Tavoy for instance and later at Thyetmyo. It 

 comes and goes in a very strange manner. One day thousands 

 are to be seen, the next not a bird is to be found, but when 

 the monsoon commences they settle down here and there and 

 breed, laying five or six eggs, and by the cold season have all, 

 or mostly all, retreated further south. Coronatus similarly moves 

 in multitudes up northwards in India, about the setting in 

 of the S.-W. Monsoon. 



Davison was, I believe, the first to take the eggs of this 

 species. Writing from Amherst, in 1875, he remarks : 



"On the 15th July I found a nest of this Ground Thrush 

 containing six very much incubated eggs, (shooting the bird 

 as she flew from her nest). This nest also, like that of P. cuculata 

 was placed on the ground at the root of a small tree; but it 

 was built in much thinner jungle, only about 3 or 4 yards 

 from a footpath, and was quite exposed to view ; it was con- 

 spicuously smaller and much less roughly put together, though 

 composed of exactly the same materials ^to wit, dry twigs and 

 leaves and lined with fibres) as the nest of P. cuculata, but the 

 roof sides, as well as foundation, were much thinner, and it 

 wanted the conspicuous platform in front of the entrance 

 hole of the nest of that species — the entrance in this present 

 nest being almost on a level with the ground. It measured 

 8 inches in diameter, 5*5 in height, the entrance 35 in 

 diameter; the egg cavity 5*5 wide interiorly (and 3*5 high.) 



" These Ground Thrushes apparently sit very close, as in 

 both this case, and in that of P. cuculata I walked to within a 

 couple of feet of the nests before the birds leftthein." 



The eggs are in some respects of the i*egular Pitta type, very 

 round ovals, glossy, and with a white ground, but they are 

 far more thickly marked and richly colored than those of any 

 of our other Ground Thrushes with which I am acquainted. 

 The markings consist of rather small, generally irregular, often 

 angular blotches, spots, streaks, smudges, and lines, thickly 

 set, and to judge from the series before me, pretty uniformly 

 distributed over the whole surface of the egg. They are of two 

 colours — maroon red, and deep inky purple, black, or very 

 nearly so, in many spots. 



