2 
eight inches in diameter, and about the same in height. The entrance-hole in five of 
them was on the side about halfway up. In one the opening was close to the ground. 
One nest contained four, another five eggs, glossy white, spotted, scratched, and streaked, 
especially on the larger end, with purple, and having also obscure purplish cloudy spots. 
They measured from 1-05 to 1:09 x 0:82 to 0:86 inch, and, according to Hume, resembled 
very closely the eggs of Pitta cucullata. 
Oates, in ‘ Birds of British Burmah,’ /. c., says the female differs from the male in having 
the upper plumage brown instead of blue, and the lower plumage yellowish-brown barred 
with black. 
Some authors have placed this species in the genus Æucichla, chiefly because the 
rectrices are longer than those oftypical Pitta, and also that the breast-feathers are rather 
barred than spotted. The tail-feathers are too broad for Æucichla, while the style 
of coloration would not seem to be a sufficient reason to separate it from the genus 
Pitta ; and in a general arrangement of the Family it would be better to leave it with 
the large Pitte, under the subgenus Leucopitta proposed in 1870, than to place it in a 
genus with whose members it cannot be said to be closely allied. 
The two Plates represent the species the size of life—one giving a figure of the 
male, the other those of adult female and immature male. 
