THE BIRDS OF NORTH CACHAR. 172 
Family CRATEROPODIDA. 
Sub-family Crateropodine. 
(19) Dryonastes RUFICOLLIS.—The Rufous-necked Laughing 
Thrush. 
Oates, No. 62 ; Humé, No. 410. 
Common up to about 3,000 feet, above which it is seldom met with. 
(20) D. caruLtatus.—The Grey-sided Laughing Thrush. 
Oates, No. 65 ; Hume, No. 408. 
Fairly common towards the north-west of the district. All my eggs 
are very pale blue-green. 
(21) D. sannio.—The White-browed Laughing Thrush. 
Oates, No. 67 ; Hume, No. 409. 
I have only found this bird on the higher peaks towards Manipur, 
and on only one is it at all common. 
The nests are very much like those of D. rujicollcs, but are, as a rule, 
rather more massive, in some cases measuring as much as 7” across the top 
and about 4" in external depth. Internally they measure much the same, 
about 3°2" x 2”, The lining is almost invariably of coarse roots and fern 
stems, and I have never known any other material used for this pur- 
pose. ‘The nests are generally placed in small saplings or high bushes 
between 5 and 10 feet from the ground, but one was found ina 
sapling about 20 feet high. The eggs are either two or three in 
number. I have not taken any nests with four eggs, and have often 
seen two eggs much incubated. They area beautiful soft blue-green in 
colour, about the same shade as in the eggs of D. cerulatus, yet easily 
distinguishable by their satiny appearance. The texture can be best 
described by the word already used, sateny, and the surface is very 
fine and close, displaying a slight. gloss, always more than in the 
eges of JD. cerulatus and never as much as in those of D. 
rujicollis, The texture is the same as in the eggs of Trochalopterum 
virgatum and T. lineatum and of Statoctchla merulina, but can be dis- 
tinguished from the former by their greater size, and generally from 
the latter by their shape, which isa long oval, somewhat drawn out 
towards the smaller end, which is rather blunt. 
A series of twenty-four eggs average in size 1:19” ¥ ‘79", and range 
in length from 1:12" to 1:26” and in breadth from *76" to 83". 
