72 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



visited the huts and made friends with the people, only returning 

 on board (it was a glorious moonlight night) very late indeed. 



The harbour is merely a broad channel running east and west, 

 dividing Nancowry and Camorta Islands, more than a mile wide 

 in the middle, and little more than 100 yards broad at either 

 extremity. It looks therefore like a lake, and forms a most 

 perfect haven of refuge. It is a most lovely place, the shore 

 mostly wooded down to the water's edge, with the most varied 

 and luxuriant tropical vegetation. Palms, ferns, screw pines, 

 mangroves all mingled with a vast variety of forest trees. 

 Here and there extend little coral beaches, and on them amid 

 clumps of cocoanuts, and a perfect forest of the tallest bare 

 poles and bamboos, to which innumerable rags and pieces of 

 cloth are attached, (this being the Nicobarese antidote to 

 the devil,) ! little clusters of the beehived-shaped huts of the in- 

 habitants, well raised on poles, peep out here and there. The 

 whole harbour is paved with live and growing coral, and the 

 southern and shallower portion of it presents one of the most 

 striking marine parterres I have yet seen. 



We saw but little in our line, the usual Blue and White Reef- 

 herons, (why is it that the white ones are so confoundedly 

 wary ? The blue you can shoot by the dozen, the white never) ; 

 White-bellied Sea-eagles, Blyth's White-collared Kingfisher (H. 

 occipitalis,) the Common Swallow, the Nicobar Paroquet, the 

 eternal Common Sandpiper, and a few Bronze-winged Doves 

 where we landed, were all that I can remember. 



In the stomach of the Megapod which we shot at Tillang- 

 chong, which was enormously strong and muscular, we found a 

 good deal of sand, fragments of quartz and specimens of Scarabus 

 plicatus and one of the little rare (in museums^ it is common 

 enough here) Helicina Zelebori. Of the former the largest was 

 about three quarters of an inch long and contained the animal. 

 We also found portions of larvae. 



We had entered at the eastern mouth of the harbour, and 

 early next morning (11th) Ave steamed out at the western, and 

 set our course due south for Galatea Bay. 



We have taken with us two Nicobarese, who style themselves 

 Captain Long and Captain Short, and a good canoe, as this may 

 be useful for landing where the surf is heavy. Every Nicobarese, 

 I may remark, who possesses a single article of European 

 clothing (and they attach greater value to this than even to 

 tobacco or rum) styles himself Captain. Black chimney hats 

 seem the most coveted article ; and a gentleman wholly nude, 

 save for a strip of rag three fingers wide, but mounting a terribly 



