THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF BENGAL, 75 



drawn nearer, closely examined, and rejected, then another, 

 and another, but none suit, and he drags himself away another 

 foot, and as usual immediately collapses and remains motionless 

 in a doubled-up position for a minute before he resumes his 

 search for a suitable loading. Here again several shells are 

 examined and rejected, at last Eureka ! he has pleased himself, 

 he places the shell conveniently, turns round and pops in. But 

 it is very clearly a misfit, despite which, obviously considering 

 it better than nothing, he starts off in search of a better dwell- 

 ing, which he at last meets with a few yards ahead. I turned 

 more than a dozen ruthlessly out of house and home, just to 

 see how they would behave ; some dropped into new shells as 

 if by magic, one failed altogether, during the whole time I 

 watched him, to please himself, but the majority comported 

 themselves as I have above described. 



After a while I strayed into the jungle, and almost immediately 

 came on a party of Megapods, and had strange to say a good, 

 though very long, shot at one, and missed it. There were nu- 

 merous Megapod mounds about, some quite old and deserted, 

 some apparently in use. 1 amused myself digging, or making 

 the natives I had with me cut, a careful section* into one of 

 them, and then I got hold of one of the resident Nicobarese, 

 a civilized enough fellow, who can scarcely have seen an 

 Englishman before, and yet who, like all the Camorta people, 

 talked a little English, and pumped him as to Megapods and 

 things in general, but without any very great success, though 

 he showed me a mound out of which he averred that he had 

 recently obtained a number of eggs. 



In the jungle I twice caught a momentary glimpse of a 

 bright-colored Ground -thrush (Pitta) which I took to be 

 moluccensis. Others of the party also saw it, but no one got a 

 shot at it. Further I noticed the Black-naped Azure Flvcatcher 

 (M. azarea), the Allied Paradise Flycatcher (T. affinis), Tytler's 

 Tree-stare (C. Tytler), the Nicobar Bulbul {Hypsipetes nieo- 

 bariensis), Ty tier's Backet-tailed Drongo (D. ajinis), Blyth's 

 Imperial Pigeon (C. insularis), and the Bronze-winged Dove 

 (C. indicus), but except the first none of these were numerous,, 

 and I wandered I dare say for a couple of miles through high 

 forest, with comparatively little undergrowth without seeing 

 more than one or two of each of the others. On the beach 

 again the Common Sandpiper (T. hypoleucos) as usual put 

 in an appearance, Sea-eagles soared about overhead, an occa- 

 sional Kingfisher (II. occipitalis) passed, noisily expressing the 



* I have given further particulars when treating separately of this species, p. 280. 



