184 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



not say whether the hole was lined or not. It is curious that 

 the bills of all the young of these two species that I examined 

 were quite red, both upper and lower mandibles ; the adult 

 females always have the bills black. Can it be that the bills 

 turn from red in the young females to black in the adult 

 females ? In P. fasciatus the young males have the upper man- 

 dible black, turning to red as they become adult. The young 

 of P. erythrogenys and P. ajjinis that I examined may have 

 been all males, but this I think was not likely. I must have 

 seen, during my stay at the Andamans and Nicobars, at least 

 thirty young birds of these species, of all sizes, in their nests, 

 with convicts, or in the Nicobarese huts, and yet I never saw 

 a young one that could not fly that had a black upper or lower 

 mandible. The only very young one, however, that I skinned 

 and dissected was no doubt a male." 



152 ter.— Palaeornis affinis Tytler. (27.) 



This species, as has already been pointed out, inhabits the 

 whole of the Andaman group including Narcondam and Barren 

 Island, the Oocos and Preparis, and they are amongst the most 

 common birds that occur there. How they differ from erythro- 

 genys has already been fully explained, vide ante, p. 23, et seq.). 

 I need only now give dimensions of fully plumaged adults 

 recorded in the flesh : — 



Males.— Length, 16'5 to 18-25; expanse, 205 to 21-75 

 wing, 6'7 to 7*2 ; tail, from vent, 9 to 10*5 ; tarsus, 05 to 

 0-6 ; bill, from nostril to point, 0*87 to 0*95. 



Females. — Length, 13'5 to 15 ; expanse, 19 to 21 ; wing, 

 6*4 to 6*95 ; tail, from vent, 6*55 to 8. 



The dimensions of this and of the preceding species were taken 

 from about a dozen of the finest birds of each sex. Immature 

 specimens, and those with imperfect wings and tails, being 

 excluded. The soft parts in both species are precisely similarly 

 colored. The oldest females in this, as in the last species, have 

 both mandibles black, and have the red cheek patch smaller and 

 much duller colored than in the males ; they also have the 

 whole mandibular stripe green, while the females of erythro- 

 genys have three-fourths of this stripe black, and only the ter- 

 minal one-fourth greenish. 



The habits of this and the preceding species are identical ; they 

 abound everywhere ; land where you will, throughout the 

 group, their screeching note is sure to greet you. On Mount 

 Harriet they swarm to a degree scarcely to be credited, and 

 in Macpherson's Straits, as you thread your way through the 



