100 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



is therefore the only thing- that will induce them to take even the 

 trouble of gathering- and bringing- you their surplus cocoanuts. 

 When drunk the Nicobarese are peculiarly good-humored ; in fact 

 you only know that they are drunk by their being- so very merry 

 and talkative. In their excessively humid and malarious climate, 

 spirits in moderation do them, Ibelieve, more good than harm. 



The people are comfortable, happy, and as far as I can judge — > 

 and I made very close enquiries — better and more virtuous than 

 the mass of the lower classes in Europe. No man ever hungers, 

 thirsts, or lacks shelter. Any Nicobarese, no matter what island 

 he belongs to, wanting food, and at a distance from his own 

 home, walks into the first house he sees. He may know nothing 

 of the owner, may very probably not even speak to him, but 

 he knows exactly where the food and drink is kept (all the 

 houses are arranged exactly alike in every detail), he helps 

 himself to all he needs, cooks his dinner, eats, drinks, and 

 departs, often without any sign even of thanks. If he chooses to 

 talk, the people of the house will sit round and chat, if he does 

 not, no one will persume to ask questions. Every fellow-country- 

 man has a right, according to their ideas,, to a meal, if he wants 

 it, and they would let a stranger thus eat every scrap of food 

 in the house before they would dream of violating this simple right. 



The Nicobarese are the freest, and I suppose, so far as mere 

 physical comfort goes, amongst the happiest people in the world. 

 The absolute equality that exists between the sexes, the careful 

 manner in which every member of the whole community (if I 

 may so call a non-cohesive aggregate of individuals) respects 

 the rights of others, find few parallels elsewhere. 



Altogether they seem to me a people of whom, if only wisely 

 managed, a great deal may yet be made ; but on whom our 

 interference, unless most guarded and judicious, and it has, I 

 fear, hitherto been scarcely the one or the other, is likely to 

 operate most unfavorably. 



To return, on Car Nicobar we shot for the first time a speci- 

 men of the Nicobar Mynah (T. erythropygius), a beautiful 

 and well-marked species, which we have all been on the look- 

 out for, from the first, but which neither Davison nor ourselves 

 had hitherto succeeded in finding. Even here only a pair were 

 seen, and the second bird was unfortunately lost owing to an 

 excess of zeal on the part of a neophyte, i" did not use bad 

 language ; but I heard sundry minatory ejaculations that griev- 

 ed me greatly. Blyth's Collared Kingfisher {H. occipitalis) was 

 remarkably abundant ; it is commou throughout the Nicobars, 

 but here it swarms. The Nicobar Oriole, Paroquet, White- 



