"Several more nests found subsequently with eggs up to 4th June were similar in structure, but placed in small oak trees from 5 to 15 or 18 feet from the ground.
"I found a nest of this species containing a single hard-set egg on the 17th August; both parent-birds were by the nest; this is unusually late, the chief breeding-month being June."
The eggs are very long ovals, of a delicate pale greenish-blue ground-colour, with a few spots, streaks, and streaky blotches of a very rich though slightly brownish red at the large end. These eggs, though somewhat longer in shape and less freely marked, are exactly of the same type as those of T. cachinnans and T. variegatum. The texture of the shell is very fine and compact, and they have a slight gloss. In some eggs the spottings are more numerous, and, besides the primary markings already mentioned, a few purple spots and blotches, mostly very pale, are intermingled with the darker markings. In almost all the eggs that I have seen the markings were absolutely confined to the larger end.
In length the eggs vary from 1·15 to 1·22, and in breadth from 0·8 to 0·86; but the average is about 1·2 by 0·82.
85. Trochalopterum nigrimentum, Hodgs. The Western Yellow-winged Laughing-Thrush.
Trochalopteron chrysopterum (Gould), apud Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 43; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no. 416.
The Western Yellow-winged Laughing-Thrush breeds, so far as is yet known, only in Nepal, Sikhim, and Bhootan, from all which localities we have quite young birds, but no eggs.
Dr. Jerdon says:—"The eggs are greenish blue, in a nest neatly made with roots and moss." This, of course, is wrong, as the eggs are now well known to be spotted.
From Sikhim, Mr. Gammie writes:—"The Yellow-winged Laughing-Thrush breeds from April to June at elevations from 5500 feet upwards. It prefers scrubby jungle, and places its nest in bushes about six feet or so from the ground. It is a broad, cup-shaped structure, neatly and strongly made of fine twigs and dry grass-leaves, lined with roots and with a few strings of green moss wound round the outside. Externally, it measures about 6 inches wide, and 4½ deep; internally 3¼ by 2½.
"The eggs are usually three in number."