and supercilia bright fulvous; ear-coverts chestnut; upper back and sides of neck fulvous, the feathers with broad black sub-terminal marks and fulvous tips; scapulars and wing-coverts to tail reddish brown with white spots preceded by black marks; quills tipped white, the earlier primaries black on the outer webs, becoming progressively ashy and then chestnut; middle tail-feathers chestnut, tipped with white; the others rufous at base, then ashy and finally black with white tips; centre of throat black, the feathers with narrow rufous edges; sides of throat rufous barred with black; below fulvous buff, the breast barred with black and the flanks more olivaceous with a few paler fulvous bars.
Colours of soft parts. Bill yellowish, dusky above and on tip; legs dull yellow; iris yellow-brown.
Measurements. Length about 310 to 320 mm.; wing 130 to 135 mm.; tail about 180 mm.; tarsus about 48 mm.; culmen about 30 to 32 mm.
Distribution. Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan, from which latter place I have received typical specimens. The type-locality may be restricted to Darjeeling.
Nidification. Hume received a nest from Sikkim with one of the parent birds. "The nest is principally composed of these" (fern and grass) "intermingled with moss and roots and is a large, loose structure some 7 inches in diameter." It was placed close to the ground in a thick clump of fern and grass, and contained two eggs which are not described.
Habits. This Laughing-Thrush is a bird of high elevations. It occurs about Darjeeling from some 6,000 or 7,000 feet up to at least 10,000 feet. It keeps much to heavy forest, and appears to be less gregarious and not so noisy as the species of the two preceding genera.
(141) Ianthocincla cineracea cineracea.
The Ashy Laughing-Thrush.
- Trochalopterum cineraceum Godw.-Aust., P. Z. S., 1874, p. 15 (Naga Hills).
- Ianthocincla cineracea. Blanf. & Oates, i, p. 85.
Vernacular names. Lehu (Angami Naga).
Description. Forehead, crown and nape black; lores, a broad supercilium, ear-coverts and under the eye dull white, a narrow line over the ear-coverts and a broad moustachial streak black, the latter ending in streaks on the sides of the upper neck; upper plumage and wing-coverts olivaceous-ashy, tinged with rufous on the upper tail-coverts; secondaries and the tail like the back, each feather with a subterminal black band and a white tip; primaries ashy on the outer web; primary-coverts black; winglet ashy on the outer webs, dusky on the inner; chin and throat pale fulvous, with the shafts black; whole remaining lower plumage fulvous, tinged with olive on the flanks and albescent on the abdomen.
