“In Kumaon,” writes Mr. R. Thompson, “they breed from May to July, along all the smaller hill-streams, from 1500 up to about 4500 feet.  In the cold season it descends quite to the plains—­I mean the Sub-Himalayan plains.  The nest is generally more or less circular, 5 or 6 inches in diameter, composed of moss and mud clinging to the roots of small aquatic plants or of the moss, and lined with fine roots and sometimes hair.  A deep well-watered glen is usually chosen, and the nest is placed in some cleft or between the ledges of some rock, often immediately overhanging some deep gloomy pool.”

“On the 16th June,” observes Captain Hutton, writing from Mussoorie, “I took two nests of this bird, each containing three eggs, and also another nest, containing three nearly-fledged young ones.  The nest bears a strong resemblance to that of the Geocichlae, but is much more solid, being composed of a thick bed of green moss externally, lined first with long black fibrous lichens and then with fine roots.  Externally the nest is 31/2 inches deep, but within only 21/2 inches; the diameter about 43/4 inches, and the thickness of the outer or exposed side is 2 inches.  The eggs are three in number, of a greenish-ashy colour, freckled with minute roseate specks, which become confluent and form a patch at the larger end.  The elevation at which the nests were found was from 4000 to 4500 feet; but the bird is common, except during the breeding-season, at all elevations up to the snows, and in the winter it extends its range down into the Doon.  In the breeding-season it is found chiefly in the glens, in the retired depths of which it constructs its nest; it never, like the Thrushes and Geocichlae, builds in trees or bushes, but selects some high, towering, and almost inacessible rock, forming the side of a deep glen, on the projecting ledges of which, or in the holes from which small boulders have fallen, it constructs its nest, and where, unless when assailed by man, it rears its young in safety, secure alike from the howling blast and the attack of wild animals.  It is known to the natives by the name of ‘Kaljet,’ and to the Europeans as the ’Hill Blackbird.’  The situation in which the nest is placed is quite unlike that of any other of our Hill-Thrushes with which I am acquainted.  The bird itself is as often found in open rocky spots on the skirts of the forest as among the woods, loving to jump upon some stone or rocky pinnacle, from which it sends forth a sort of choking, chattering song, if such it can be called, or, with an up-jerk of the tail, hops away with a loud musical whistle, very much after the manner of the Blackbird (M. vulgaris).”

Sir E.C.  Buck says:—­“I found a nest at Huttoo, near Narkhunda, date 27th June, 1869, on an almost inaccessible crag overhanging a torrent.  It contained three eggs, but two were broken by stones falling in climbing down to the nest.  Nest not brought up; one egg secured and forwarded.  I saw the bird well, and have no doubt as to its identity.”