Nidification. Breeds in the Kachin Hills in April and May, making a typical Laughing-Thrush's nest of bamboo leaves and grass, mixed with a few roots and other leaves and lined with the former. They are, as usual, cup-shaped, and are placed either in bushes or low down against trees in the dense undergrowth of ravines in forest growing in valleys over 6,000 feet elevation. The eggs are unlike any others of this family and have a pure white ground sparingly spotted and blotched with reddish-brown or nearly black spots; they are in fact exactly like Golden Orioles' eggs. Fifteen eggs average 28·7 × 20·7 mm.
Habits. This very handsome Trochalopterum is only found at heights from 5,000 to 8,000 feet, frequenting the most dense of undergrowth, in which it skulks about in small parties or pairs, being heard much more often than seen; at the same time, according to Harington, they are as inquisitive as noisy, and if one remains hidden, the birds soon show themselves in the attempt to make out the intruder.
(160) Trochalopterum subunicolor subunicolor.
The Plain-coloured Laughing-Thrush.
- Trochalopterum subunicolor (Hodgs.), Blyth, J. A. S. B., xii, p. 952 (1843) (Nepal); Blanf. & Oates, i, p. 94.
Vernacular names. Tarmal-pho (Lepcha); Nabom (Bhut.).
Description. Forehead, crown and nape dark ashy-brown, the forehead tinged with fulvous; sides of neck and whole upper plumage olive-brown, each feather margined with brown; middle tail-feathers olive-brown, the others black suffused with olive-yellow on the outer webs and tipped with white; wing-coverts olive-brown; primary-coverts dark brown; visible winglet ashy-yellow; primaries brown with the outer webs grey; outer secondaries with an increasing amount of yellow; inner secondaries olive-brown tinged with yellow and tipped with white; cheeks, chin and throat like the back, but darker and with a few white tips to the feathers of the face; under plmnage olive-brown, tinged with fulvous on the abdomen and all the feathers margined with black, except on under tail-coverts and thighs.
Colours of soft parts. Bill dusky; legs reddish brown; iris red-brown (Jerdon); iris yellowish grey (Blanf.).
Measurements. Length about 230 mm.; wing 90 to 95 mm.; tail about 100 to 105 mm.; tarsus about 35 mm.; culmen about 18 mm.
Distribution. Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and hills North of the Brahmaputra as far as the Dibang.
Nidification. According to Hodgson this Laughing-Thrush breeds in Nepal in the months of April, May and June, making a cup-shaped nest of grass and moss lined with bamboo leaves, which it builds in bushes and trees, close to the ground, in open
