THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF BENGAL. 79 



near the equator and with a perfectly clear sky, was excessively 

 hot. How the interior is ever to be explored I do not know. 

 It is as much as a man's life is worth, as has several times been 

 proved, to remain on shore anywhere inland for a single night, 

 and it would take good men, well provided with Burmese wood- 

 cutters, a week at least to work through the island. I should 

 not be surprised if ultimately some very remarkable forms were 

 here discovered ; two of the party, unfortunately not practised 

 observers, positively asserted that in the jungle yesterday they 

 saw a bird about as big as a Grackle, with bright metallic 

 green tail feathers, two feet long, and with a harsh noisy cry like a 

 Mynah's, which, if it can be believed in, points apparently to 

 some kind of Paradise or Lyre bird. 



As usual the sea was deserted, not a sea bird to be seen 

 except a pair of S. melanauche?i, which we failed to secure, 

 and we were glad to round the north-western corner of the 

 Great Nicobar into St. George's Channel, and find ourselves 

 at anchor between Kondul and the main island. 



Some of us landed on the latter, the rest on the former. It 

 is needless to describe the place ; the same lovely coral beach, 

 bestrewn with myriads of shells, the same Cocoanuts and 

 Pandanus, the same back ground of grand forest trees with 

 dense undergrowth of canes, Crinum, Cycas, and other tropical 

 forms, but some of the trees were so very lofty that it is worth 

 while to mention what happened to myself, and what I know 

 in many other places happened to almost every one of the 

 party. On the top of a large, rather sparcely foliaged tree, 

 perhaps two hundred yards in from the edge of the jungle, 

 I saw a flight of about a dozen Bly th's Imperial Pigeons alight. 

 With much trouble I worked my way to the base of the tree, 

 the trunk of which, at 20 feet from the ground, must have been 

 ten feet in diameter, and which below that was buttressed out 

 to a diameter of fully 30 feet. I looked up and, on a narrow 

 bare side bough near the top, distinctly saw a pair of the 

 Pigeons close together. I had a heavy long-barrelled No. 10 

 bore muzzle-loader, loaded with four drachms of powder and 

 one and three quarter ounce, green, wire, No. 3 shot cartridges, 

 took a deliberate pot, (the recoil nearly breaking my collar 

 bone), and about half way up saw a dozen leaves cut away 

 directly between the point of my gun and the birds. They 

 did not even move, not a shot can have got up so high as they 

 were. One of them, as I could see with binoculars, was look- 

 ing down to see what was going on below, but that was all. 

 I had a native with me, a very good shot, I handed the gun 



