170 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



certainly has a strong" objection to the sunlight, and sticks 

 persistently to the densest shade he can find. 



A male measured in the flesh : — 

 Length, 11*25 ; expanse, 16 ; wing, 4*4 ; tail, from vent, 2*82. 



We met with this species in the neighbourhood of Port 

 Blair, where it is very far from common, and where it affects 

 the gloom of the mangrove swamps, and never visits the 

 clearings or the open coast. We saw it also at Barren Island, 

 and at the Southern Jolly Boy. 



132.— Halcyon chloris, Bodd. (39.) 



We only brought 28 specimens of this bird back with us 

 from different localities in the Andamans and the Cocos, but 

 we might have obtained any number, and we have had 11 

 since sent us. 



The birds vary a little in size, and a good deal in length of 

 bill, owing chiefly to the enormous extent to which the tips of 

 the bills are abraded in some birds, both old and young. ( Vide 

 Stray Feathers, 1873, p. 451). I can discover no constant 

 differences in the size of the sexes. The dimensions of 13 speci- 

 mens of both sexes, recorded in the flesh, varied as follows : — 



Length, 9 to 10 ; expanse, 13*82 to 15*25 ; wing, 3*9 

 to 4*25; tail, from vent, 2*75 to 3*12; tarsus, 0*5 to 0*65 ; 

 bill, from gape, 2*15 to 2*45; bill at front, 1*45 to 1*8. 



The legs and feet are plumbeous in front ; behind, and the 

 soles, in some bluish, in some pinkish grey ; the upper man- 

 dible, tip, and edge of lower mandible greenish black ; rest of 

 lower mandible pinkish white ; irides deep brown. 



Mr. Davison says : — " This is nearly as common as H. smyr- 

 nensis, and has an apparently wider distribution. I have noticed 

 it at the Great and Little Cocos, Little Button, Strait Island, 

 Stewart Sound, Port Cornwallis, &c. It is also found both on 

 the sea coast and inland, but prefers gardens and the edges 

 of forests. It is a very noisy bird, but not nearly so noisy as 

 its Nicobarian congener, H. occipitalis. It feeds on centipedes, 

 small lizards, and I have no doubt on crabs and shellfish as well, 

 as it is frequently to be seen on the sea shore. I did not find 

 any nests, but Lieutenant Wardlaw Ramsay informed me that 

 he saw a pair of these birds going in and out of a hole in a tree 

 near Mount Harriet, and that he thought they must have had 

 young there." 



They may often be seen on the beach hammering shells on 

 the lumps of coral with wonderful vigour. One I shot on the 

 Little Cocos, I watched for some minutes, trying to knock to 



