108 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



As we neared land, we was a number of heavy-flying 1 black- 

 looking birds with white tails, flitting from tree to tree. At 

 fh-st we all thought that they must be Nicobar Pigeons, but as 

 we got a nearer view of them, our glasses showed that they 

 were small hornbills of some, to us, unknown species. 



Here, as at Barren Island, the water deepened very rapidly, 

 and at about 30 yards distant from laud we could get no bottom 

 in any of the many places where we sounded with a 14 fathoms 

 line ; indeed in one place there was no bottom at this depth, 

 scarcely 10 yards out from the beaeh. 



In some few places perpendicular precipices take the place of 

 steep slopes, and bold stacks of rocks vex the fretting waves into 

 an angry foam. One vast rock in particular, which the waves 

 have pierced through and through in many directions leaving" 

 only huge pillars to support the superincumbent mass, was 

 named unanimously the Cathedral. In and out of the arches of 

 this the bright green water, all laced and fringed with foam, 

 splashed and sparkled, as the long swells swept up to and 

 through it, so grandly that we were induced to draw rather nearer 

 than was perhaps safe, and realized more forcibly than was 

 pleasant, the irresistible power of those soft gentle-looking green 

 swells that seemed to pass us imperceptibly when we were 

 out in the open water. One of these swept us fifty yards at 

 least in a twinkling-, and we had only just time to pull clear 

 of the rock before a second, hurried us at railroad speed just 

 past its seaward face. 



Somewhere within this huge hollowed rock Horsfields' 

 Swiftlet fC. linchi) doubtless breeds, as I saw many of them flit- 

 ting in and out through the arches, heedless apparently of the 

 incessant showers of spray and foam that were momentarily 

 spouting up from the bases of every pillar or being hurled out 

 through the openings, as though the cavern within were tenanted 

 by a demon legion of fire engines. 



As usual we came upon the Blue Reef-heron perched solitary 

 on projecting points of rock, and saw several of the White- 

 bellied Sea-eagles soaring high in air, or perched on the bare 

 bough of some sea o'er-gazing tree, a hundred feet or so up the 

 hill side. 



The whole island is one irregular hill densely wooded (except 

 where the torrents of the monsoon have excavated long bare 

 water courses) from beach to summit, but all the trees are more 

 or less stripped of their branches, as if lopped (as we so commonly 

 see trees in Upper India) to feed camels aud elephants. When 

 I landed, which I did after circumnavigating the island, at the 



