From Kotagherry, Miss Cockburn remarks:—­“The name ‘Laughing-Thrush’ is most applicable to this bird, and its notes are often mistaken for the sound of the human voice.  This bird is very shy, except when its nest contains eggs or young, when it becomes extremely bold.  I was quite surprised to see a pair whose nest I was taking come so close as to induce me to put out my hand to catch them.  The Laughing-Thrush builds a pretty, though large, nest, and generally selects the forked branches of a thick bush, and commences its nest with a large quantity of moss, after which there is a lining of fine grass and roots, and the withered fibrous covering of the Peruvian Cherry (Physalis peruviana), the nest being finished with a few feathers, in general belonging to the bird.  The inside of the nest is perfectly round, and rarely contains more than two eggs, belonging to the owner.  The eggs are of a beautiful greenish-blue colour, with a few large and small brown blotches and streaks, mostly at the large end.  I have found the nests of these birds in February, March, and April.  Occasionally the Black-and-white Crested Cuckoo, which appears on these hills in the month of March, deposits its eggs (two in number) in the nest of this Thrush.  They are easily distinguished, as their colour is quite different from the Thrush’s eggs, being entirely dark bluish green.”

Mr. Rhodes W. Morgan writing from South India, says, in ’The Ibis’:—­“It builds a very neat nest of moss, dried leaves, and the outer husk of the fruit of the Brazil Cherry, lined with feathers, bits of fur, and other soft substances.  The nest is cup-shaped, and generally contains three eggs, most peculiarly marked with blotches, streaks, and wavy lines of a dark claret-colour on a light blue ground.  The markings are almost always at the larger end.”

The first specimens that I obtained of the eggs of this species were kindly sent to me by the late Captain Mitchell and Mr. H.R.P.  Carter of Madras; they were taken on the Nilghiris.  They are moderately broad ovals, somewhat pointed towards one end, larger than the average eggs of T. lineatum, and about the same size as large specimens of the eggs of Crateropus canorus and Argya malcolmi.  The ground-colour is of a delicate pale blue, and towards the large end, and sometimes over the whole surface, they are speckled, spotted, and blotched, but only sparingly, with brownish red and blackish brown, and amongst these markings a few cloudy streaks and spots of dull faint reddish purple are observable.  The eggs have not much gloss.

Numerous other specimens subsequently received from Miss Cockburn and others correspond well with the above description.  More or less pyriform varieties are common.  In some eggs the markings are almost entirely wanting, there being only a very faint brownish-pink freckling at the large end; and in many eggs, even some that are profusely spotted all over, the markings consist only of darker or lighter brownish-pink shades.  Occasionally a few, almost black, twisted lines are intermingled with the other markings, and in these cases the lines are frequently surrounded by a reddish-purple nimbus.