THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF BENGAL. 307 



There is therefore no doubt that in some cases the young 

 of this species is, from the first, colored like the parent, but 

 then, per contra, Davison at Trinkut shot one of the old ash- 

 colored birds, and a Nicobarese boy who saw the bird shot 

 said at once : — " I have got one of the young of that bird, 

 which I took from the nest, now alive, which he thereupon 

 brought, and Davison preserved it. This bird is about the 

 same size, and about in the same stage of plumage as the ash- 

 colored nestlings shot on the same island and already referred to. 

 It is pure white, but here and there on the head a few tufts 

 of ash colored down project through the white feathers and all 

 over the back, wings, tail, and neck are tiny ash colored 

 streaks, most of the feathers having the whole, or part, of three, 

 four, or occasionally more, barbs of one or both webs, blackish 

 ashy, these being generally towards the tips of the quills. 

 The boy, of course, was a mere savage, and had certainly no 

 idea of the discussion that has prevailed as to the connection 

 between these white and ash colored races, and I think it may 

 be fairly presumed that this pure white bird only, here and 

 there delicately pencilled with ashy grey, was really the off- 

 spring of dark ash grey birds. 



Then we have the pure white adult with fully developed 

 dorsal plumes, rather more disintegrated than in the adult 

 ashy bird, and some of them extending fully an inch 

 beyond the end s of the tail (which is the case in no 

 specimen of the ash-colored bird that I have seen), and with 

 the pectoral plumes as much developed as in the dark ash- 

 colored adults, and which in every dimension and propor- 

 tion corresponds exactly with these latter. In regard to 

 this Colonel Tytler notes : — " A distinct species, which I call 

 provisionally D. C andi da, but which may prove identical with 

 D. Gre?/i, and which precisely resembles D. concolor, Blyth, 

 has erroneously been assumed to be the young of this latter, 

 I have had them from the nest, and can certify that the 

 plumage is at all times white, just as that of concolor is always 

 ashy." 



Australian specimens of both races are identical with 

 our Andaman bird. In regard to the former Macgillivray 

 remarks : — " I was convinced that they were specifically distinct 

 by seeing that the half grown } r oung from the nests had assumed 

 the distinctive color of the parents. " 



As regards habits the birds are not to be distinguished. 

 The white perhaps are somewhat less numerous than the ash- 

 colored ones, but we found them in many places associated 



