THE BIRDS OF TEE A NDA MAN A ND NICOBAR ISLANDS. 403 



seldom perches more than five or six feet from the ground. It is a shy 

 bird, and, in thick jungle, very difficult to shoot, flitting off at the least 

 crack of a stick. 



It is very lively at dusk, and is late in going to roost, after which it con- 

 stantly utters a long-drawn note like " chee-ee" from the bush in which it 

 has taken up its quarters for the night before finally settling down to sleep. 

 I never heard it utter this note in the day. 



Mr. Hume says this bird " Has no voice, no ear, and not the faintest 

 conception of singing." This seems to me a most undeserved libel on our 

 little Andaman Shama ; it certainly has a large and varied repertoire of 

 harsh notes and most unmusical cat-calls, but it can and does sing well, its 

 song being very like that of the Indian bird, though never so sustained and 

 not so varied. It sings mostly during the first half of the 3 ear — the breed- 

 ing season. I found a nest in June, from which the young bad apparently 

 just flown ; it was in a crevice in a rotten stump in thick jungle, composed 

 of grass and dead bamboo leaves, and very like a nest of Copsyckus saularis. 

 I have known one of these Shamas enter a house : but this was quite unusual, 

 it being strictly a forest bird and seldom venturing into the open. 



(To he continued.) 



