76 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



unpleasant surprise that our presence occasioned him. Several 

 Blue Reef-herons and a couple of Whimbrels were perched on 

 the Barririgtonias, and a party of Pectoral Sun-birds (A. pectora- 

 lis) hovered about the yellow blossoms of these latter. I 

 saw nothing- more ; I never reached the river that runs into 

 the head of the bay where others of the party shot the Green 

 Bittern (B. javanicus), the Cattle Egret (B. coromandus) , and 

 a beautiful Stork-billed Kingfisher hitherto identified with 

 P. Fraseri, but which appears to me to be nearer P. leucoce- 

 phalus, and probably distinct from both. 



As I was dragging along my weary way towards this river, 

 I was aware of an inky black squall coming up rapidly from 

 the south, that meant, as I well knew, wind and rain and plenty 

 of both. I retreated at once into the jungle far enough in 

 to be perfectly protected from wind. Made my men cut at 

 once sticks, and on the top of an ancient Megapod mound, and 

 with the trunk of a tree some ten feet in diameter immediately 

 to windward, we rigged up in ten minutes (thatching with 

 the huge leaves of the great littoral Crinum, and a stemless 

 plantain-like Corypha) as comfortable a hut as one would want. 

 Then I emerged again on the shore and watched the storm. It 

 was coming steadily on like a black wall ; it already spanned 

 the bay ; on it drove, hurling a huge roll of white foam 

 before it ; another minute and it was half up the bay ; 

 then the Scotia was absolutely blotted out ; the cold chill 

 herald wind that always proceeds these squalls was soughing 

 in the trees under which I stood at the margin of the beach ; 

 it was high time to go to kennel, and I was hardly safely 

 ensconced there before it burst upon us. Individually we 

 were sheltered from the wind, but it roared and raved in 

 the tree tops, and behind us all along the margin of the 

 forest, and for a minute peeping out before the rain had 

 come in force, I could see three cocoanut trees, just visible 

 from the corner of our hut, bent down like whips, and then a 

 roar, dull and indistinct but yet overpowering all other sounds 

 surged round us, and a dense curtain, hiding everything around 

 and making darkness visible, dropped upon us. 



This was rain with a vengeance, not in drops but en masse. 

 Nothing- like it have I ever witnessed ; but our hut kept us and 

 my guns dry, and I smoked my cheroot with much patience, 

 greatly comforted in the cramped position in which I had to 

 sit, with three natives clustered round me as closely as if we had 

 all been put into one camp bed, by the reflection that the rest 

 of the party must infallibly be much worse off than myself. 



