The nest contained two nearly fresh eggs.  The eggs appear to be rather peculiarly shaped.  They are moderately elongated ovals, a good deal pinched out and pointed towards the small end, in the same manner (though in a less degree) as those of some Plovers, Snipe, &c.  I do not know whether this is the typical shape of this egg, or whether it is an abnormal peculiarity of the eggs of this particular nest.  The shell is fine, but the eggs have very little gloss.  In colour they are a very pale spotless blue, not much darker than those of Zosterops palpebrosus.

The eggs measure 1.3 and 1.32 in length, and 0.89 and 0.92 in breadth.

From Sikhim, Mr. Gammie writes:—­“In the first week of May I took a nest of the Striated Laughing-Thrush out of a small tree growing in the forest at 5500 feet above the sea.  It was fixed among spray about 10 feet up.  In shape it is a shallow, broad cup, and is built in three layers:  the outer one of twining stems, which besides holding the nest together fastened it to the spray; the middle layer is an intermixture of green moss and fresh fern-fronds, and the inner a thick lining of roots.  Externally it measured 7.5 inches broad by 5.25 inches deep; internally 4 inches by 2.75 inches.

“It contained two hard-set eggs.”

Several nests of this species that I have now seen have all been of the same type, large nests 9 or 10 inches in diameter, and 4 to 5 in height, the body of the nest composed mainly of green moss interwoven with and bound round about with the stems of creepers and a few pliant twigs, many of which straggle away a good deal outside the limits which I have assigned in stating the dimensions above.  The cavities are not quite hemispherical, a little shallower, say 4.5 inches in diameter and 2 inches in depth, closely lined with fine black roots.  They have all been placed in the branches of trees at heights of from 8 to 20 feet.

Eggs of this species obtained by Mr. Gammie in May, and Mr. Mandelli in July, are of precisely the same type.  They are rather elongated ovals, a good deal pointed towards the small end, near which they are not unfrequently a good deal compressed, so as to render the egg slightly pyriform.  The shell is fine and smooth, but has little gloss.  The ground-colour is a very pale greenish blue or bluish green, in some almost white; some of them are absolutely spotless, none of them are at all well marked, but some bear from half a dozen to a dozen tiny specks of a dark colour.  On one only there is a triangular spot about 0.05 each way, which proves on examination with a microscope to be a deep brownish red.  On the other eggs the markings are mere specks.

The eggs vary from 1.25 to 1.35 in length, and from 0.89 to 0.92 in breadth.

104.  Argya earlii (Blyth). The Striated Babbler.

Chatarrhaea earlii (Blyth), Jerd.  B. Ind. ii, p. 68; Hume, Rough
Draft N. & E. no. 439.