246 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



secondary. The white patch entirely wanting on the tertiaries. 

 The lesser and median coverts not so pure a black as the rest of 

 the wing, but greyer and duller. Middle and lower back and 

 scapulars, a rufescent olivaceous brown ; rump more ferrugi- 

 nous ; upper tail-coverts iron grey more or less tinged towards 

 the tips with olivaceous brown ; abdomen, sides, flanks, vent 

 and lower tail-coverts moderately bright ferruginous, deepest 

 and becoming almost chesnut, on the lower tail coverts ; the 

 lower breast a mixture of iron grey and dull ferruginous, or 

 more properly, perhaps, iron grey suffused with dull ferruginous ; 

 wing lining black ; axillaries grey ; tail black much graduated ; 

 the pair next the central ones from 1*7 to 1*9 shorter ; the next 

 pair from 2*7 to 3'2 shorter; the next pair from 3*7 to 4*1 

 shorter ; the fifth pair from 4*5 to 4'9 shorter ; and the 

 exterior pair of all from 5 - 5 to 5*8 shorter. In freshly moulted 

 birds the tail is very conspicuously obsoletely barred, but this is 

 scarcely traceable when the plumage is at all worn or abraded. 



Our party never met with a specimen. Davison, however, 

 found them common in one place. He says : — ei I only found 

 this little pie in the immediate vicinity of Port Blair, where in 

 suitable localities it is not uncommon ; the two places where 1 

 have found it most numerous are Mount Harriet and its immedi- 

 ate neighbourhood, and in the forest at Aberdeen. It is a forest 

 bird, and never ventures away from the cover of large trees ; 

 as far as I have observed, it keeps entirely to the trees, never 

 descending to the ground like the other Dendrocittas. It has 

 a sharp metallic note, something like that produced by drawing 

 a coarse file across the teeth of a saw. Usually they keep in 

 pairs, but I have seen five or six together. I obtained twenty- 

 one specimens of this bird at the Andamans ; but did not 

 observe it at the Nicobars, Great or Little Cocos, or any of the 

 other islands I visited." 



It is a permanent resident. Captain Wirnberley sent us 

 numerous specimens killed from May to September, and we have 

 specimens killed by one person or another in every month of 

 the year. 



It certainly does not occur at the Nicobars, every island of 

 which was more or less worked by our party or Davison. 



684.— Acridotheres tristis, Lin. (1.) 



This species was introduced by Colonel Tytler and has thriven 

 and multiplied greatly on Ross Island ; but although the main 

 land is not more than a quarter of a mile distant none have 

 ever strayed thither, and though a pair are said to have been 



