216 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



to pick up an insect, and I have at times seen several seated 

 together on the roads ; it is not at all a shy bird, and often flies so 

 close, as almost to touch you as it passes ; it is not found in the 

 Nicobars that I am aware of, but occurs on the Little Coco, and 

 probably on the Great Coco and adjacent isles. 



" On the 2nd of May I saw a bird of this species fly into a 

 hollow at the top of a rotten mangrove stump about 20 feet high. 

 The next day I went but did not like to climb the stump as it 

 appeared unsafe, so I determined to cut it down, and after giving 

 about six strokes that made the stump shake from end to end, 

 the bird flew out ; I made sure that, as the bird sat so close, the 

 nest must contain eggs, so I ceased cutting, and managed to find 

 a very light native lad who volunteered to climb ; on his reaching 

 the top, he found, to my great disappointment, that the nest, 

 although apparently finished, was empty. The nest was built 

 entirely of grass, somewhat coarse on the exterior, finer on the 

 inside, it was a shallow saucer-shaped structure, and was placed 

 in a hollow at the top of the stump." 



The young in this species has the chin and throat white, or 

 nearly so, the quills and rectrices conspicuously white tipped ; 

 the coverts and all the feathers of the occiput and back, includ- 

 ing the scapulars, obscurely tipped with dingy yellowish white ; 

 the feathers of the middle of the back especially with traces of a 

 somewhat darker subterminal band ; the bill is not so pure a 

 blue as in the adult. Such is the plumage of a bird killed early 

 in July, and it is probably about two months old. 



We have specimens of this killed from December to quite the 

 end of July, so that it is very probably a permanent resident. 



289.— Tchitrea affinis, Bay. (3.) 



Specimens from the Andamans and Nicobars are absolutely 

 identical with others from Darjeeling, though the wings average 

 about one-tenth of an inch shorter. As far as I have been able to 

 ascertain affinis does not go further west in the Himalayas than 

 Kumaon. Blyth somewhere remarks that he has seen no species 

 from the Himalaj^as but affinis, but I have paradisi from Kumaon 

 and every part of the lower hills westward from Kumaon, and 

 I have never seen true affinis from anywhere westward of 

 Kumaon. 



Davison remarks : — (< This bird is exceedingly rare at both 

 the Andamans and Nicobars, more so probably in the former 

 than the latter. At the Andamans I did not succeed in 

 obtaining any specimen, or of even seeing it alive, but I saw 

 the tail of an adult male in the possession of Captain Bridge, 



