30 MACPHERSON STRAIT 



beach and commenced waving a flag on the end of a long 

 pole. 



As the sea was pounding heavily on the reef, a couple of 

 men were left in the boat to keep it off shore, and the rest of 

 us, jumping overboard, waded to the beach. Two or three 

 other natives now arrived, and we showed our good intentions 

 by slapping them on their backs, with broad grins, to the latter 

 part of which process they responded most heartily. 



It was too early in the day to get to work with the camera, 

 so, after fetching my gun from the boat, I struck into the 

 jungle and spent an hour with the more clothed of its 

 inhabitants. 



The jungle was of the kind that may perhaps be best 

 described as forest : that is to say, it was fairly free from the 

 usual superabundance of rattans, lianas, and all those creeping 

 growths which close the intervals among the trees with a thorny 

 network of vegetation, and compel the intruder to go where 

 he can and not where he will. Mighty trees towered upwards, 

 branches interlacing and shutting out the sun, while down 

 below, in the aisles of tree-trunks, stood the smaller brethren 

 and the saplings, waiting the fall of some neighbouring giant to 

 give them in turn room to lift their branches towards the 

 light. 



Little blue fly-catchers, utterly fearless, flitted about in the 

 lower bushes, and, higher up, golden-billed grackles hopped 

 or flew from branch to branch, their loud clear whistles resound- 

 ing through the forest, whilst from the tops of the biggest trees 

 came the deep " boom, boom," of the great fruit-pigeons. How- 

 ever, although birds were fairly numerous, I got but few prizes — 

 best among them, perhaps, a pretty little olive-green and yellow 

 minivet {Pericrocrotus andamanensis), and a black racquet-tailed 

 drongo {Dissemuroides andamanensis), a bird whose flight, as 

 its long tail feathers stretch out behind, is extremely graceful, 

 and who possessed one of the sweetest combination of notes 

 heard in the jungle. 



With such specimens in my bag, I presently came on a 



