THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF BENGAL. 65 



Yesterday we had noticed none of these, to-day this little 

 Swiftlet and the Common Swallow (//. mstica) were hawking to 

 and fro everywhere, the flight of the former being conspicuously 

 lighter, swifter, and more graceful. 



Landing on the Jolly Boy Reef I found that M. had shot three 

 Crab-plovers, and a number of the same birds that I noticed and 

 shot there the previous day, and had so thoroughly frightened 

 everything that it seemed hopeless endeavoring to shoot. So I 

 turned my attention to shells, and soon secured a dozen magnifi- 

 cent cowries (Cypraa), each as big as my fist (and I am not 

 blessed with small hands) whom I caught sidling along in the reef 

 pools. When you first see them they are all covered with their 

 thick fleshy black furry-looking mantle, but with the least touch 

 this is all retracted, and the beautiful glossy spotted shell left 

 bare. Buried in the sand with only the edges of the broader 

 ends yet visible, I found enormous Pinnae some two feet in length, 

 and fixed firmly in the coral reefs, their orange-tipped mouths 

 a little open, and showing the blue animal inside, huge Clams, 

 one of which would have furnished a meal for half a dozen men. 



In the pools were millions of great sea-slugs, trepangs, 

 Beche de mer, or what you please to call them (Holothuria) some 

 of them 3 feet in length and 6 inches in diameter, not merely 

 smooth black things, such as I have elsewhere seen, but many 

 colored, greyish white, olive yellow, green and brown, plain or 

 combined in patterns, and covered with tubercles and ridges 

 of all shapes, but in each species perfectly symmetrically arrang- 

 ed so as to produce very striking and even beautiful forms. 



The rest of the party, shooting amongst the trees of the 

 islands, procured more specimens of most of the species already 

 noticed, and besides these several specimens of the Imperial 

 Green Pigeon (C cenea, Lin., or if distinct C. sylvatica. Tick.) 



Steam being up we started in the barge for Bird-nest Cape 

 where we were to meet the Scotia. About half way we found 

 two large canoes full of Andamanese of the Rutland Island tribe 

 waiting us. One of the party, who had been previously at the 

 Andamans, had met two of these the first day we reached the 

 Straits, and had told them when we were to return, and desired 

 them to collect shells, turtle, and a variety of other things. It 

 must not be supposed that he knew Andamanese, no one does 

 except Mr. Homfray, but one of the men he met knew a few 

 words of English, and thanks to these and of repeated signs 

 and gestures he had managed to make them understand some- 

 thing of what we wanted, and that Mom-joora (" our protector," 

 as the Andamauese call Mr. Homfray,) was our father and 



