244 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



The smallest female of six has the wing 11*4, and tliey 

 certainly average above 12. 



Davison remarks : — "The Indian Corby occurs all over the 

 Andamans, not merely in the vicinity of the habitations of men, 

 but also on the uninhabited islands. I saw it on the Little 

 Button, Strait Island, and on one of the little islands situated in 

 Stewart's Sound. At the Nicobars it does not occur, except a 

 few that have been taken over from Port Blair, and turned 

 loose on Camorta, of which a pair at least by the way have 

 flown over to the adjacent island of Trinkut, where they have 

 taken up their abode among the Casuarina trees, growing on 

 the banks of the fresh water ponds on the eastern side of the 

 island. It seems strange that they should not keep about the 

 Nicobarese huts ; but this I fancy is because the fresh water 

 ponds afford them more sustenance in the way of frogs, &c., 

 than they would be able to pick up among the offal about the 

 huts, owing to the numbers of dogs kept by the Nicobarese, 

 and the very small waste of animal matter that occurs among 

 them. From all I could learn, I conclude that the present 

 species was never introduced into the Andamans like C. 

 impudicus (which by the way has totally disappeared). 

 Mr. Homfray tells me that in Colonel Ford's time these birds, 

 though perhaps not so numerous as at present, were still not 

 uncommon. I besides questioned many convicts who were among 

 the first sent to the Settlement, and they all stated that they 

 saw crows when they first went down." 



Colonel Tytler and Captain Beavan both concurred in sepa- 

 rating the Andamanese crow as distinct, on the grounds, chiefly, 

 that its voice differs entirely from that of culmenatus, and 

 that it has a habit of congregating. As regards the voice this 

 most certainly does vary considerably in different parts of 

 India. The birds of the plains of Upper India have decidedly 

 a different call from those of the Himalayas, and that of the 

 Andaman birds seemed to me very like that of our hill birds. 

 Davison thinks that their call, though not perhaps so powerful 

 as the Nilghiri birds, was not otherwise very perceptibly 

 different. As for their going in flocks, although in the plains of 

 India, they are almost always met with in pairs at long distances 

 from each other, alike in the Himalayas and the Nilghiris 

 they continually congregate in flocks. For my part I consider 

 it impossible to separate any of the various races of the Bow-' 

 billed Corby that I have yet seen from the Himalayas or 

 any part of India, Burmah, the Malayan Peninsula, or the 

 Andamans. 



