THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF BENGAL. 233 



The young are similar, but smaller; the chin, throat, and 

 breast glossless black ; the quills hair brown ; the secondaries 

 margined faintly with ferruginous on the outer webs, as are also 

 their greater and some of the median coverts ; the sides of the 

 abdomen are tinged with ferruginous ; the gloss of the upper 

 parts is much fainter. 



This bird is doubtless a permanent resident. A very young 

 bird just out of the nest and killed in July, has the entire head, 

 neck, breast, and back deep brown almost black on the breast, 

 each feather with a smaller or larger, dull ferruginous, spot towards 

 the tip ; the quills and coverts are all margined on the outer webs 

 with dull ferruginous ; the lesser coverts with spots of the same 

 color ; the flanks and the sides of the abdomen mottled dusky 

 and pale ferruginous. 



Davison says : — " The White-bellied Shamah is confined, as 

 far as is at present known, to the Andamans, and there it is, 

 in some localities, comparatively abundant. It has from a short 

 distance very much the appearance of C. saularis, and has the 

 same habit of lowering its wings and erecting its tail ; its 

 flight is tolerably rapid and somewhat undulating. It usually 

 frequents the sides of forest paths, but I have seen it in gardens, 

 and in scrub on the edge of a clearing ; it keeps near, or on the 

 ground by preference, but when disturbed often perches at a height 

 of six or eight feet from the ground. Kittacincla macroura is cele- 

 brated for its sweet singing; the present bird might lay a claim for 

 celebrity too, not for its sweet voice, but for the power of giving 

 utterance to a series of hoarse, anything but musical sounds, which 

 it is difficult, at first, to conceive can have proceeded from the 

 present bird, and which would not seem so strange if it were 

 a bird of the size of a crow, and perhaps of the same family." 



Mr. Blyth says the male is a good songster ; but I have listened 

 to it too often to be able to endorse this opinion, on the contrary 

 it may be emphatically said that this bird has no voice, no ear, 

 and not the faintest conception of singing. 



433.— Pratincola rulbicola, Lin. (3.) 



The specimens of this species obtained in the Andamans 

 belong to the somewhat smaller and darker race which is usually 

 characterized as indica ; but as already mentioned, Stray Fea- 

 thers, 1873, p. 183, I do not myself think that this race can be 

 specifically separated. 



The first specimen I obtained of this bird, Stray Feathers, 

 1873, p. 307, is characterized by a long broad pure white super- 

 cilium, such as I have seen in no other specimen, giving the 



