GAHIMJLA.X. 53

their nests were being examined, they came round in flocks to see
what was happening, chattering and making that peculiar laughing
note from which this genus takes its name. They are even gre-
garious in the breeding-season, and all the nests were found pretty
near each other about 6000 feet up."

The nest sent me by Colonel Marshall is a broad, shallow cup,
or saucer as I should perhaps call it, some 6 inches in diameter,
with a central depression of at most 1*5 inch, below which the nest
is an inch or 1*5 in thickness. It is very loosely put together, and
composed interiorly of moderately fine dry twigs and roots, but
exteriorly it is completely wound round with slender green ivy-
twigs to which the leaves "are attached. It has no lining or pre-
tence for such.

Captain Cock says :—" The White-throated Laughing-Thrush
lays one of the most lovely eggs with which I am acquainted. The
nest is usually low, never'more than 10 feet or so from the ground;
and of some fifteen or more nests that I have taken, all were con-
structed of long stalks of the ground-ivy, twisted round and round
into a wreath. The nest is not a deep cup; if anything it is rather
shallow, but it is very wide. I always found these nests in. thick
forest, at high elevations from 6000 to 7000 feet. The birds used
to sit close, and when put off their nests would commence their
outcries, and from all parts they would assemble and flit about
almost within reach of one's hand, making an awful noise, and in
the dark shade of the forest their white gorgets had quite a ghostly
lool?. The eggs are always three in number, of a beautiful shining
blue-green, sometimes of a very long oval type. I have found
the nests at Murree from the 3rd May to quite the end of
June."

Colonel G-. !\ L. Marshall writing of this species says:—" A
nest found at Nynee Tal on Ayar Pata, about 7000 feet above the
sea, contained two fresh eggs on the 31st May. The eggs were of
a rich deep greenish blue, unspotted. The nest was a scanty and
loosely-built structure, composed of roots and stems of grass and
creepers, cup-shaped, rather shallow, and lined with a curious black
creeper, very like coarse hair. The birds were gregarious even
though breeding, and were moving about the underwood in parties
of three to five. The nest was near the top of an oak-sapling in
a dense coppice, placed close against the stem in a bunch of leaves
at the top. The only difficulty in finding it lay in the scantiness of
the structure rather than in the concealment by the foliage. The
bird was on the nest and only moved off about 3 feet, sitting close
by and chattering indignantly during my inspection. They are
noisy birds, constantly on the move, and their notes, though rather
harsh, are very varied and quite conversational"

The eggs are long, and pointed at the small end, to which they
sometimes taper much. They are very glossy, and vary from a
deep dull blue (the blue of a dark oil-paint, very much deeper than
that of any other of the Crateropodinse with which I am acquainted)
to a deep intense greenish blue. Possibly other as deeply coloured