60 CEATEEOPODIDJE.

tions of from 4000 to 7000 or 8000 feet, from Simla to Nepal,
during the latter half of April, May, and June. The nest is a
pretty compact, rather shallow cup, composed exteriorly of coarse
grass, in which a few dead leaves are intermingled; it has no lining,
but the interior is composed of rather finer and softer grass than
the exterior, and a good number of dry needle-like fir-leaves are
used towards the interior. It is from 5 to 8 inches in diameter
exteriorly, and the cavity from 3 inches to 3-5 in diameter and
about 2 inches deep. The nest is usually placed in some low,
densely-foliaged branch of a tree, at say from 3 to 8 feet from the
ground; but I recently obtained one placed in a thick tuft of
grass, growing at the roots of a young Deodar, not above 6 inches
from the ground. They lay four or five eggs.

The first egg that I obtained of this species, sent me by Sir E.
0. Buck, C.S., and taken by himself near Narkunda, late in June,
out of a nest containing two eggs and two young ones, was a nearly
perfect, rather long oval, and precisely the same type of egg as
those 'of T. erytliroceplialum and T. cachinnans, but considerably
smaller than the former. The ground-colour is a pale, rather dingy
greenish blue, and it is blotched, spotted, and speckled, almost ex-
clusively at the larger end, and even there not very thickly, with
reddish brown. The egg appeared to have but little gloss. Other
eggs subsequently obtained by myself were very similar, but slightly
larger and rather more thickly and boldly blotched, the majority of
the markings being still at the large end.

The colour of the markings varies a good deal: a liver-red is
perhaps the most common, but yellowish brown, pale purple, pur-
plish red, and brownish red also occur. Here and there an egg is
met with almost entirely devoid of markings, with perhaps only
one moderately large spot and a dozen specks, and these so deep
a red as to be all but black.

The eggs vary from 1-07 to 1-15 in length, and from 0*76 to 0-82
in breadth.

91. Troahalopterum simile, Hume. The Western Variegated

Laucjiiing-Thrusli.
Trochalopterum simile, Hume • Hume, Cat. no. 418 bis.

Messrs. Cock and Marshall write from Murree:—" The nidifi-
cation of this Troclutlopteriwri was apparently unknown before. We
found one nest on the 15th June, about twenty feet up a spruce-
fir at the extremity of the bough. ISTest deep, cup-shaped, solidly
built of grass, roots, and twigs; the bird sits close. Eggs light
greenish blue, sparingly spotted with pale purple, the same size as
those of Merula eastanea."