94 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



Both in this island and Teressa almost the whole of the rising 

 ground is covered with thick grass which, from the sea, looks 

 bright and green and soft as velvet, but on a nearer approach 

 proves to be tall, coarse stuff, troublesome to wade through, and 

 yielding nothing apparently but a little Turnix (very close 

 to, and perhaps identical with, joudera) and Cislicola schoeni- 

 cola, both just what Davison had met with in similar localities 

 at Camorta. In the forest the same birds were shot as at 

 Katchall, only' Blyth's Imperial Pigeon (C. insularis) was here 

 extraordinarily plentiful, and Osmotreron chloroptera, and 

 Reef-herons, the Bush-thrush and Megapods, which we did not 

 secure at Katchall, were shot here. 



In the evening we steamed close in along the whole eastern 

 coast of Teressa, but did not land there. Davison had spent 

 a day on it previously and gave a poor report of it as a collect- 

 ing ground, so we pushed on past it, and past Chowra, a very 

 low flat island, with, however, a cluster of high rocks at the 

 south-east corner, from which direction the island looks like a 

 bare square rock. Davison, who had visited it, considered it one 

 of the best cultivated of the group, the whole island except this 

 rocky corner abounding in oranges, limes, and cocoanuts and 

 well inhabited. Here, and here only apparently in the whole 

 group, is any pottery made. It was getting dark by the time 

 we were abreast Chowra, the sea was exceptionally smooth 

 and calm, we were excessively anxious to land at Batty Malve, 

 hitherto reported inaccessible, and apprehensive that a day's 

 delay might deprive us of the rare and fortunate chance afford- 

 ed by the existing calm, we decided to go straight on to that 

 island. 



When I awoke, just after day break, we were steaming 

 slowly round Batty Malve, at a distance of about a mile 

 from the shore. The island was low, with no central ridge 

 or hillock, nowhere rising I suppose more than 20 feet above 

 high water level, but everywhere precipitous or fringed 

 with jagged rocks at the water's edge. Strong currents seemed 

 to be running all round it, so that while outside the sea was 

 like a mill-pond the entire coast-line was wrapped in surf. 

 We stood in nearer and again made the circuit. I should 

 guess the island to be about a mile and half long by three- 

 quarters of a mile broad. 



As we slowly circled round we noticed several flocks of 

 heavy-flying black-looking birds, with white tails, and rather 

 long and clumsy necks, as it seemed to us, leaving the island, 

 and flying off high in air northwards, southwards; and south- 



