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 Crateropodinae with which I am acquainted) to a deep intense greenish blue.  Possibly other as deeply coloured eggs occur in this family, but I have seen none like them.  They are of course entirely unspotted.

In length they vary from 1.16 to 1.25, and in breadth from 0.8 to 0.86; but the average of some twenty eggs measured is 1.22 by 0.83.

78.  Ianthocincla ocellata (Vig.). The White-spotted Laughing-Thrush.

Garrulax ocellatus (Vig.), Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 41; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 414.

I know nothing personally of the nidification of the White-spotted Laughing-Thrush, which breeds nowhere, so far as I know, west of Nepal, but I had a nest with a couple of eggs and one of the parent-birds sent me from Darjeeling.  The nest was taken in May in one of the low warm valleys leading to the Great Runjeet, and is said to have been placed close to the ground in a thick clump of fern and grass.  The nest is chiefly composed of these, intermingled with moss and roots, and is a large loose structure some 7 inches in diameter.

Mr. Blyth remarked in ‘The Ibis’ (1867) that this species was “surely a Trochalopteron rather than a Garrulax,” and the eggs seem to confirm this view.  These are long, cylindrical ovals, very obtuse even at the smaller end.  They are about the same size as those of Garrulax albigularis, with a very delicate pale blue ground and little or no gloss.  One egg is spotless; the other has a few chocolate-brown specks or spots towards the large end.  They measure 1.18 by 0.86 and 1.25 by 0.85.

80.  Ianthocincla rufigularis, Gould. The Rufous-chinned Laughing-Thrush.

Trochalopteron rufogulare (Gould), Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 47; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 421.

Common as this species is about Simla, I have never yet secured the nest, and know nothing certain about the eggs.

Captain Hutton says:—­“This species appears usually in pairs, sometimes in a family of four or five.  It breeds in May, in which month I took a nest, at about 6500 feet elevation, in a retired and wooded glen; it was composed of small twigs externally and lined with the fine black fibres of lichens.  The nest was placed on a horizontal bough, about 7 feet from the ground, and contained three pure white eggs.  Size 1.12 by 0.69; shape ordinary.  The stomach of the old bird contained sand, seed, and the remains of wasps.”

One egg that I possess of this species I owe to Captain Hutton, and it is of the Pomatorhinus type—­a long oval, slightly pointed pure white egg, with but little gloss, measuring 1.08 by 0.75.

From Sikhim a nest, said to belong to this species, has been recently sent me.  It was found below Darjeeling in July, and was placed in a double fork of the branchlets of a medium-sized tree.  It is a moderately deep cup, composed almost entirely of dry, coarser and finer, tendrils of creepers, and is lined with a some black moss-roots and a few scraps of dead leaves.  It contained three fresh eggs.