tinged with ashy; tail chestnut-brown; lower parts of cheeks rufous-brown; extreme point of chin black; remainder of chin, throat, the middle of the breast and abdomen and under tail-coverts white; sides of breast and abdomen ashy.
Colours of soft parts. Iris red or red-brown; bill horny-black, paler and greyer at the base; legs pale fleshy. "Orbital skin livid" (Jerdon).
Measurements. Length about 280 mm.; wing 103 to 108 mm.; tail about 120 mm.; tarsus about 35 mm.; culmen about 20 mm.
Distribution. Nepal, Sikkim, hills North of the Brahmaputra and hill-ranges of North Manipur, Naga Hills to Dibrugarh.
_180.jpg)
Fig. 27.—Head of D. c. cærulatus.
Nidification. Breeds in Sikkim in May and June and occasionally as early as April at between 6,000 and 8,000 feet, making a bulky, cup-shaped nest of twigs, bamboo leaves, grass, roots and stems of plants, lined with finer roots and fern-rachides and placed in small trees or high bushes at any height between 5 and 15 feet.
The eggs, two or three in number, are pale blue-green, very like those of Garrulax moniliger, but the texture is smoother and closer though not nearly so hard or glossy as those of the ruficollis group. Fifteen eggs average 30·5 × 22·1 mm.
Habits. Similar to those of the rest of the genus. This bird, however, is one of high altitudes, being found principally between 3,000 and 5,000 feet, and ascending up to 6,000 feet in summer and descending to about 2,000 in winter.
(124) Dryonastes cærulatus subcærulatus.
The Shillong Laughing-Thrush.
- Garrulax subcærulatus Hume, S. F., vii, p. 140 (1878) (Shillong).
- Dryonastes subeærulatus. Blanf. & Oates, i, p. 76.
Vernacular names. None recorded.
Description. Similar to the last, but has the ear-coverts and cheeks above and below them white, just tipped here and there with black; the three outermost pairs of tail-feathers are broadly tipped with white and the upper parts are rather paler.
