THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF BENGAL. 175 



■1'9 to 2'05 ; bill, at front, 1*4 to 1*6 ; wings, when closed, reach 



to within 0'7 of end of tail; weight, 075 ozs. 



The legs and feet are bright vermilion : the bill of the male 

 ill . 



black, orange at gape ; in one female the bill is deep red, here 



and there clouded with dusky. 



In the male there is a broad streak from the nostrils to the 

 upper margin of the eye, of rufous buff, immediately below 

 this is a very narrow black line running to the lower margin 

 of the eye. The forehead, crown, occiput, nape, cheeks, ear- 

 coverts, and sides of the neck (with the exception of a small 

 yellowish white patch in the centre of the latter behind the 

 ears) black or nearly so; the feathers tipped with bright blue, 

 brighter and purer on the cheeks and sides of the head, greener 

 and paler on the crown. The feathers of the upper part of 

 the head narrowly tipped, so that the blue appears as narrow 

 transverse bands on a black ground ; those of the cheeks and 

 sides of the head, broadly tipped, so that the blue is almost 

 continuous, and only faintly striated with narrow dusky bars. 

 A little behind the eye there is a little black patch of feathers 

 untipped with blue, and behind this again begins the broad, 

 stripe or yellowish patch already alluded to. The whole of 

 the centre of the back, rump, and upper tail coverts bright 

 glossy ultramarine blue, a little darker laterally. The wings 

 are hair bi'own, the coverts and the outer webs of the secondaries 

 and tertiaries, and the tips of the latter, suffused with dull blue, 

 most of the coverts with a tiny shaft stripe at the tip of nearly 

 the same color as the back. Tail hair brown, central tail fea- 

 thers, and the outer webs of some of the laterals, more or less 

 suffused with violet ; chin and throat yellowish white, changing 

 at the base of the throat into the color of the breast, which is 

 an intensely deep ferruginous. The wing lining similar, but paler 

 and more of a chesnut ; flanks, abdomen, and lower tail coverts, 

 duller, paler, and more or less tinged with dusky. A few of the 

 feathers of the side of the breast often more or less broadly 

 tipped with deep violet. 



The adult female, according to our two specimens, differs only 

 in having a deep red instead of a black bill, while the female, 

 according to previous authors (or it may possibly prove the 

 young), differs in having the whole cheeks and ear-coverts 

 deep ferruginous. 



Davison remarks : — " This bird is more abundant than the 

 preceding, but unlike it ; keeps exclusively (as far as I have 

 observed) to the salt water creeks, occasionally venturing 

 out to the fishing: stakes at the mouths of the creeks. Its 



