256 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



any specimens that I have, or have seen from Malacca, while as 

 to size again it does not appear to me that there is much to 

 choose. The following is a resume of the dimensions of twenty- 

 two specimens measured in the flesh. I note that the two sexes 

 do not appear to differ in size : — 



Length, 11-5 to 13-5 ; expanse, 19'5 to 23 ; wing, 6 to 7*25 ; 

 tail, from vent, 3*1 to 4 ; tarsus, 1*12 to 1*55 ; bill, from gape, 

 1'6 to 1-7; weight, from 7 to 11 ozs. ; wings, when closed, reach 

 to within from 1*0 to 2*0 of end of tail. Length of lappets from 

 occiput from 0*6 to 0'8 ; width of lappets from 0*5 to 0'55. 



The legs and feet are yellow varying from pale to dull 

 chrome yellow ; the bills vary from pale orange to coral red, 

 but are always pale yellow at the tip; the lappets vary 

 from gamboge yellow to light orange ; the irides are deep 

 brown. 



Davison remarks : — "I found this bird exceedingly common both 

 at the Andamans and Nicobars. It keeps to the trees never des- 

 cending to the ground that I have observed ; it is usually in 

 pairs, sometimes in small parties ; but in their feeding ground 

 they congregate in large numbers, dispersing in twos and threes 

 when they have satisfied their hunger. In a small piece of 

 clearing, a short distance from Mount Harriet, a large number of 

 Papeeta trees (Carica papaya) were full of fruit when I visited 

 it, and there I must have seen at the very lowest computation 

 a hundred of these birds feeding on the fruit, to which they 

 are particularity partial, and on which they are usually fed when 

 in captivity. 



"They are largely caught by the ticket-of-leave men at Port 

 Blair, and thirty to forty I am told are carried to Calcutta 

 every month, and there fetch from Us. 3 to 5 a piece ; the price 

 at Port Blair varies from 4 to 8 annas each. They easily 

 accustom themselves to captivity, and learn to speak in a won- 

 derful manner imitating to perfection voices and sounds that 

 they often hear. 



" They breed in April and May, building a nest of grass, dried 

 leaves, &c, in holes of trees. Their usual notes are so varied that 

 it is impossible to describe them ; when hopping about the 

 branches of a tree they continually utter a hoarse croak, varied 

 occasionally by a regular metallic shriek that goes through one, 

 and of which a very good conception may be formed by draw- 

 ing a hard pointed substance down a window pane, or turning 

 the stopper of a glass stoppered bottle quickly round in the 

 neck, and then imagining the sound produced to be multi- 

 plied twenty fold." 



