66 CEATEBOPOIUD^E.

of a light greenish blue, the tint being much the same as that of
the eggs of AcridotJieres tristis. They lay from the commencement
of May to the end of June."

Colonel (T. P. L. Marshall tells me that" the Streaked Laughing-
Thrush is very common at Mussoorie, where it is called by the
public the Robin of India. It breeds in July and August all about
Landour. The nest is cup-shaped, rather shallow, and loosely put
together, made of grass and fibre with some moss and a few dead
leaves twisted into it; it is placed in a low bush or else on the
ground concealed among the grass-roots on the hill-side. The
eggs, three or four in number, are oval, rather large for the bird,
and of a pure light-blue colour without spots.. I took eggs on the
26th and 28th July and on the 16th August."

Sir E. C. Buck writes:—"At Mutianee, three marches north
of Simla, I found on the 28th June a nest in a bush on the side of a
scantily ' jungled' hill. It was 2 feet from the ground, constructed
of grass and stalks externally, and lined with fibrous roots. It con-
tained three fresh eggs. The nest measured—exterior diameter
6 inches, height exteriorly 4 inches; the interior diameter was 3
inches, and the depth of the cavity 2 inches."

The late Captain Beavan tells us that " on the 16th of August,
1866, I fouud a nest in the garden, in a rose-bush, with four pale
blue eggs in it, like those of AcridotJieres tristis. The nest is a
large structure, firmly built of dry twigs, bark,- sticks, ferns, and
roots. Another nest, with three eggs only, was found in a thick
clump of everlasting peas close to the ground on the 6th of Sep-
tember. The female sat very close, and this may have been the
second nest of the same pair that built the nest mentioned above,
as it was built not far from the first."

Major C. T. Binghain writes:—" Being at Landour for a few
days in May I chanced on a nest of this bird, perhaps the com-
monest in the hills. It was placed under an overhanging bush on
the side of Lai Tiba hill, and on tlie ground, being constructed
rather loosely of pieces of the withered stem of some creeper,
intertwined with a quantity of oak-leaves, and lined with grass-
roots."

The eggs, of which I must have seen some hundreds, as this is
Ihe commonest Laughing-Thrush about both Mussoorie and Simla,
are typically regular and moderately broad ovals. * Abnormally elon-
gated, spherical, and pyriform varieties occur; some are nearly
round like a Kingfisher's, and I have seen one almost as slender
as a Swift's, but, as a rule, the eggs vary but little either in shape
or colour. They are perfectly spotless, moderately glossy, and of
a delicate pale greenish blue, which of course varies a little in
shade and intensity of colour, but which is very much paler on the
average than those of any of the Crateropi, and at the same time
less glossy. I am not at all sure whether T. lineatum is rightly asso-
ciated with species like T. cachinnans, T. variegation, and T. ery-
throceplialum, which all have spotted eggs.

In length the eggs vary from 0'8 to 1*13, and in breadth from