296 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



876.— Terekia cinerea, Guldenst. (8.) 



The Avocet Sandpiper was only met with in the Andaman 

 group. It appears common enough in the neighbourhood of 

 Port Blair. Specimens "killed as late as the middle of April 

 exhibited no sign of the summer plumage. 



Davison says : — " Large flocks of this bird, are to be met with 

 about the creeks. At high water they settle on the mangroves, 

 and at low water feed along the bare mud banks." 



877— Numenius lineatus, Cuv. (2.) 



I have already, Stray Feathers, 1878, p. 257, fully discussed 

 the difference between the Indian and European curlews. 

 Large grey curlews were seen by several of us in the Andamans, 

 but no specimens were preserved ; it is impossible, therefore, to 

 be certain that they belonged to this present species. 



Davison says : — " I have often seen this bird about the creeks, 

 but obtained no specimen ; it is excessively shy and difficult 

 to approach. I find from my notes that the last time I observed 

 this bird was on the 8th April. I did not observe it at the 

 JNicobars." 



Since this was written I have received two of these curlews 

 killed at Port Blair on the 16th of August and the 24th Sep- 

 tember, and now that I have got them I am just as much in 

 doubt as ever as to what the species is. 



They are a male and female of the lineatus and arquatus type ; 

 one, the female, is an excessively pale 'bird, the other, the male, 

 an excessively dark bird. The female measures, wing, ] 2*4 ; 

 tarsus, 3*45 ; bill, at front, along curve, 6*0. The male, wing 

 10*55 ; tarsus, 3 - 2 ; bill, as above, 5 -5. Both these birds have the 

 rumps pure white, the upper tail coverts white with narrow longi- 

 tudinal shaft stripes ; both birds are slenderer and smaller than 

 any specimen of lineatus I have ever seen. The male, long as 

 his bill is, is scarcely bigger than a whimbrel. The birds do 

 not look like lineatus. I have shot some hundreds of this latter 

 species, and I never saw one with the same tone of coloring as 

 either of these birds, moreover the axillaries in both birds are 

 absolutely pure white. Lineatus, in India at any rate, always, as 

 far as my experience goes, has a narrow dark brown shaft streak 

 towards the tip of each axillary ; arquatus from Europe not only 

 has this but often has the axillaries more or less barred. Of 

 course on finding these pure white axillaries I thought the birds 

 were P. Cassinii, Swinhoe, but they are much too big for the 



