THE BIRDS OF THE ANDAMAN AND NICOBAR ISLANDS. 389 



Dancing is carried on every fine night, the performers making a large ring 

 with their hands on each other's shoulders, the men on one side and the girls 

 opposite them on the other. They do not dance round, but take two or three 

 paces and a stamp to one side and then to the other. If the dancers are few 

 in number the ring is left one-third open rather than made smaller. 



Toddy goes round freely and by midnight every one is more or less intoxi- 

 cated and consequently fuddled and stupid next morning. When heavy 

 rain prevents dancing the Nicobarese make the best of it and lie beside 

 their nectar inside their huts. 



Wrestling is rather a favourite sport between the lad.s. The rounds are 

 very short, one or the other going down at once. 



The Nicobarese did not seem to me very good fishermen, and I did not see 

 a single fish of any size captured during my stay. I noticed four methods of 

 fishing— by hook and line, netting with a small casting net, spearing fish by 

 torch-light, and killing the small fry left in the pools at low tide with an 

 intoxicant made by nrashing up some jungle fruit which I could not 

 name. 



Mr. Hume's account gives one a capital idea of the islanders excepting on 

 one point. Mr. Hume gives one the impression that the Nicobarese are partly 

 amphibious, diving from their canoes and catching large fish, sometimes two 

 at a time, in their hands. The Nicobarese of the present day certainly are 

 unable to do anything of the sort, I questioned many Nicobarese on this 

 point, and none of them seemed at all familiar with this method of fishing; 

 in fact, the idea rather tickled them. The officer in charge of the Nicobars, 

 who knows more about the islanders than any other man living, had never 

 heard of it either ; and when I found Captain London, still hale and hearty, 

 though growing old, the very man whom Mr. Hume describes as " diving 

 stark naked from his canoe and bringing up fish in his hands" — and he too 

 had never heard of this style of angling — well, it did occur to me that 

 Mr. Hume had for once been enlivening his ornithology with a touch of 

 romance, but I dismissed the thought at once as disloyal to the greatest of 

 Indian ornithologists ; tempora mutoAitur, and perhaps the Nicobarese are 

 changing with them. 



I have to thank Col. R, C, Temple, C.I.E., Chief Commissioner of the 

 Islands, for much assistance kindly rendered, and I am, I think, indebted to 

 nearly every Officer in the settlement for kindness and hospitality shown me 

 during my visit. 



I will now proceed with the ornithological part of this paper, which, it will 

 be seen, is chiefly a comparison of my observations with those of Messrs. 

 Hume and Davison in 1873. 



The numbers prefixed to the names of species are those employed in the 

 Bird volumes in the " Fauna of India " series. 



