266 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



not notice it at Katchall, Bompoka, Teressa, the Great or Little 

 Nicobars, or Pilu Milu, though it probably does occur on these 

 islands but only in very limited numbers: on Katchall the 

 natives were quite unacquainted with the bird, and had no dis- 

 tinctive name for it, as the natives of Nancowry, Camorta, &c, 

 had. On Camorta, Nancowry, and Trinkut, I found that this 

 pigeon, though occasionally found some little distance in the 

 forest, kept in general to the mangrove swamps, but on Kon- 

 dul, Chowry, Treis, and Track, there is little or no mangrove, 

 and consequently the birds were found equally all over the 

 island ; the two latter islands were simply alive with them. 



" Although I did not obtain the nest or eggs of this bird 

 myself, from all I could ascertain from the convicts, &c, these 

 birds breed in January, February, and March, building their 

 nests, which like those of other pigeons are merely platforms 

 of sticks, by preference in the mangroves, and laying usually 

 only one white egg. I observed it on the Great Cocos, but 

 did not meet with it at the Andamans." 



In the young bird all the feathers of the upper surface are 

 broadly tipped with pale buff, and the under-surface is a good 

 deal tinged and mottled with this same color. 



It is probable that another large fruit pigeon visits the 

 Nicobars. Moungking, a very intelligent Burmese, who has 

 resided for eighteen years at the Nicobars, told us that the 

 Nicobarese at certain times catch and bring him a large whitish 

 pigeon something like bicolor, but greyer and with a large red- 

 naked space round the eye. It is to be hoped that we may yet 

 obtain a specimen and ascertain the species. I think Moung- 

 king's testimony reliable, as he described correctly enough ail 

 the species that the Nicobarese habitually catch and cage, and 

 which, with the exception of this one species, were all known to 

 us. 



791 bis.— Macropygia rufipennis, Blyth. (37.) 



Specimens of Blyth's Cuckoo-dove from various parts of the 

 Nicobars and Andamans are identical, but the birds themselves 

 vary inter se to an incredible extent. There are two strongly mark- 

 ed types; in one the bird has the whole of the upper part of the head 

 a rich uniform chesnut, the lower parts paler chesnut, paling on 

 the abdomen to a dingy, yellowish, slightly rufescent, brown, the 

 whole breast and abdomen with narrow transverse, dark brown 

 lines ; in the other the head is the same color as before, but is 

 regularly longitudinally streaked with blackish brown, and the 

 whole lower surface is a rich, uniform chesnut, without any 



