Mr. J.R.  Cripps writing from Eastern Bengal says:—­“On the 15th April I found a nest on the very top of a mango-tree about 30 feet off the ground, shooting the male as it flew off the nest.”

The eggs of this species are very variable in colour, shape, and size.  Typically they are rather broad ovals, somewhat compressed towards one end, and much the shape of, though a good deal smaller than, those of our English Song-Thrush.  Some are, however, long and cylindrical; others more or less spherical.  The colour varies from a pale blue, like that of Trochalopterum lineatum, to a deep dull blue, recalling, but yet not so dark as, that of Garrulax albigularis.  The eggs are typically glossy, but it is remarkable that in a large series the deepest coloured are always far the most glossy.  Some deep blue eggs of this species are most intensely glossy, more so than almost any other of our Indian eggs, except those of Metopidius indicus.  I need scarcely say that the eggs are entirely spotless and devoid of all markings, but I may note that each egg is invariably the same colour throughout, and that I have never met with a specimen in which the shade of colour varied in the same egg.

In length the eggs vary from 0.88 to 1.15, and in breadth from 0.75 to 0.82; but the average of fifty-one eggs measured is 1.01 by 0.78.

C. malabaricus.

The Jungle Babbler, like the White-headed one, breeds pretty well over the whole of Southern India, but while the latter is chiefly confined to the more open plain country, the former is the bird of the uplands, hills, and forests.  Still the Jungle Babbler is found at times in the same localities as the White-headed one, and what is more, specimens occur, as in Cochin, which partake of the distinctive characters of both.  A great deal still remains to be done in working out properly this group; both in Sindh on the west and the Tributary Mehals on the east, and again in some parts of the Nilghiris, races occur quite intermediate between typical C. terricolor and typical C. malabaricus, while in the south, as already mentioned, forms intermediate between this latter and C. griseus seem common.  Three distinguishable races again of C. griseus are met with, but running the one into the other, while intermediate forms between this species and C. somervillii (Sykes) are also met with.

Mr. Davison remarks:—­“This bird seems to be very irregular in its time of breeding.  I have taken the nest in May, June, October, and December.  The nest is rather a loose structure of dry grass and leaves, lined with fine dry grass; it is generally placed in the middle of some thick thorny bush, and cannot generally be got at without paying the penalty of well scratched hands.  The eggs, generally five in number, are of a very deep blue with a tinge of green, but of not so decided a tinge as in the eggs of M. griseus.  It breeds on the slopes of the Nilghiris, not ascending to more than about 6000 feet.”