X.] BIRDS OF THE OBI GROUP. 237 



of forest, dark and damp and fever-suggesting, just at the edge of a 

 mangrove swamp, whose trees were fightmg with the jungle for 

 mastery. The ground, bare of vegetation, was covered with a layer 

 of greasy black mud, riddled in all directions with the holes of the 

 little Gelasimi or Calling Crabs, who scattered before me in dozens 

 at my approach, cracking their claws defiantly with that peculiar 

 tiny snapping sound which alone would suffice to recall to one's 

 mental \'ision with lifelike ^ividness every characteristic in such a 

 scene as these mangrove -clad tropic shores present, I perched 

 myself on a dry root clear of the fetid mud and waited. This time 

 it w^as not in vain, for before I rejoined my companions on the 

 beach I had shot tliree specimens of my much-desired prize. The 

 Obi Island Tanysiptera has the head and wing coverts brilliant 

 ultramarine, and the rest of the back and wings deep indigo. The 

 entire imder- surface of the body is creamy white, and the beak 

 vermilion, while the median pair of tail feathers are gTeatly 

 prolonged — to a length, perhaps, of nme or ten inches in full 

 plumage. They are dark ultramarine in colour and vei'y narrow, 

 but terminate in a racquet-shaped expansion of snowy whiteness. 

 I watched the bird sitting on the boughs a few feet only above the 

 ground, motionless but for an occasional rapid movement of the 

 head. Suddenly there was a flash as of a blue meteor descendmg 

 to the ground, and a moment later the lovely creature had returned 

 to his perch, and sat hammering away at the small crustacean he 

 had found ; the whole action remmdmg me strongly of that of 

 the Bee-eaters. 



Our hunters turned up one after another on the beach, and 

 almost all of them had obtained the TanydjpUra, which must exist 

 in tolerable abundance on the island. They had also several 

 species peculiar to the Obi group, most noticeable among which 

 was a gaily-coloured Parrot {Geoff roy us oMensis) closely allied to 

 its congener (G. cyanicollis) of Batchian and Gilolo, and a miniature 

 crow approaching the Paradiseidae in form {Lycocorax ohiensis), 

 a curious genus exclusively confined to the Moluccas. Presently 



