5G0 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XII. 



partial to the branches of trees than the trunks. I have two or three times 

 noticed it clinging motionless to the extreme top of some tall dead stump 

 in jungle, looking out over the tree tops, and occasionally, 

 giving a rattle on the wood, apparently as a call note or mere 

 amusement. 



1000. Thriponex hodgei, Blyth. Blanf., Ill, p. 75 ; *'Str. Feath.," II, 



p. 189. 



This fine black wood-pecker is fairly common in the Andamans, but rather 

 shy, and from the thickness of the jungles not easy to shoot. Each individual 

 has two or three favourite dead stumps, to which it repairs two or three 

 tines daily, and clinging motionless to this look out post for half an hour 

 at a time, it gives out at intervals a most extraordinarily loud jarring rattle 

 on the dead wood, which can be heard for a mile or more, and is usually 

 answered from two or three other parts of the forest. 



I once flushed this bird from the ground. It seems always to be more or 

 less ragged and moulting, and I did not succeed in getting a really good 

 specimen. 



1025. EuRYSTOMUS ORiENTALis, Linn. Blanf., Ill, p. 107 " Str. Feath.," 

 II, p. 164. 



The broad-billed roller occurs in the Andamans but does not extend . to 

 the Nicobars. Davison notes it as " comparatively common about Mount 

 Harriet and other well-wooded places." The bird seems to be scarcer now ; 

 I only saw it some seven or eight times altogether, and to anyone acquainted 

 with it it is a conspicuous bird at any distance. The flight of this bird 

 is very graceful. I have seen it follow a flight of termites to a great eleva- 

 tion, hawliing in wide circles, taking a few slow strokes with its wings and 

 then sailing on outspread pinions for a considerable distance. It brings 

 the wing very far down in flight, so much so that the tips appear to 

 point straight downwards at the end of a stroke. 



This is a very difficult bird to procure in the Andamans, Many of the 

 tallest trees have their topmost branches bared and dead, blasted by the force 

 of some of the terriflc cyclones to which the islands are subject. On these 

 dead topmost branches the roller rests motionless watching for its prey_ 

 You proceed to stalk him and, after forcing your way to the base of the tree 

 through a horrible undergrowth of rattan, pandanus and other detestable 

 prickly abominations, you see — if indeed you can see anything through the 

 dense thicket in which you are standing — the roller in the same position 

 somewhere between 90 and 120 feet over your head. Now this roller is, like 

 other rollers, extremely tough and tenacious of life, and at this great 

 height the shot you have taken so much trouble to obtain usually 

 resulted in Eurystoinus flying lazily off to a perch a quarter of a mile further 

 into the forest, leaving a very ruffled and exasperated naturalist to work 

 his way through the thorns into the open again. 



