are told, three or four eggs.

Dr. Jerdon says:--"A nest and eggs said to be of this bird were
brought to me at Darjeeling; the nest made of roots and grass, and the
eggs, three in number, pale blue, with a few narrow and wavy dusky
streaks."

The eggs are singularly lovely. In shape they are elongated ovals,
generally very obtuse at both ends, and many of them exhibiting
cylindrical or pyriform tendencies. The shell is very fine and fairly
glossy, and the ground-colour is a most beautiful clear pale sea-green
in some, greenish blue in others. The character of the markings
is more that of the Buntings than of this family. There are a few
strongly marked deep maroon, generally more or less angular, spots or
dashes, principally about the large end, and there are a few spots
and tiny clouds of pale soft purple, and then there are an infinite
variety of hair-line hieroglyphics, twisted and scrawled in brownish
or reddish purple, about the egg. The markings are nowhere as a rule
crowded, and towards the small end are usually sparse and occasionally
wholly wanting. In some eggs a bad pen seems to have been used to
scribble the pattern, and every here and there instead of a fine
hair-line there is a coarse thick one.

The eggs are pretty constant in size and colour, but here and there
an abnormally pale specimen, in which the green has almost entirely
disappeared, is met with. In length they vary from 0.98 to 1.15, and
in breadth from 0.7 to 0.82, but the average of thirty-one eggs is
1.04 by 0.74.

88. Trochalopterum subunicolor, Hodgs. _The Plain-coloured
Laughing-Thrush_.

Trochalopteron subunicolor, _Hodgs., Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 44; _Hume,
Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 417.

The Olivaceous or Plain-coloured Laughing-Thrush breeds, according
to Mr. Hodgson's notes, in the central region of Nepal from April to
June. It nests in open forests and groves, building its nest on some
low branch of a tree, 2 or 3 feet from the ground, between a number of
twigs. The nest is large and cup-shaped: one measured externally 5.5
inches in diameter and 3.38 in height; internally 2.75 deep and 3.12
in diameter. The nest is composed externally of grass and mosses
lined with soft bamboo-leaves. Three or four eggs are laid, unspotted
greenish blue. One is figured as 1.07 by 0.7.

90. Trochalopterum variegatum (Vig.). _The Eastern Variegated
Laughing-Thrush_.

Trochalopteron variegatum (_Vig.), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 45; _Hume,
Roug