THE ISLANDS OF THE BAY OF BENGAL. 315 



streaked with this color. The wing lining and axillaries deep 

 brown, strongly, but somewhat narrowly, barred with white, 

 and here and there somewhat tinged with ferruginous brown ; 

 the whole mantle is hair brown with here and there a faint 

 ferruginous tinge, everywhere closely variegated with narrow 

 imperfect freckled, or zigzag bars of buffy yellow, and with 

 here and there a few narrow shaft spots of this same color. 

 The first three primaries are much as in the bird first described, 

 and the rest of the primaries and secondaries are freckled 

 towards their tips with white or pale buff, but the primaries 

 are a very deep, and the rest of the quills a pale hair brown; the 

 chesnut colored greater coverts of the fourth, and following 

 primaries are broadly tipped with white, and freckled all over 

 with hair brown. 



Comparing our three birds with the descriptions and figures 

 already referred to, it would seem that the species referred to is 

 very variable in its plumage, and that a very large series is 

 required before its various changes can be properly described. 

 We shot one bird on Tillangchong, Mr. Davison obtained two 

 from Malay birdcatcher at Camorta, who caught them at False 

 Harbour. Our bird was shot in the afternoon ; but Mr. Davison, 

 tells me : — "The man from whom I obtained these birds 

 informed me that he caught them during the night on the 

 edge of a small stream in the forest whither they came to 

 feed ; during the day he informed me that they remained 

 perfectly still seated on the branch of a tree or among the 

 pandanus, and that they fed during the night only ; the note 

 he informed me was loud and like a bark." 



937— Nyctiardea nycticorax, Lin. (0.) 



Davison says : — " I saw several of night herons at the fresh 

 water ponds on Trinkut Island, JSicobars, but failed to secure 

 a specimen."" 



951— Nettapus coromandelicus, Lin. (O.) 



Lieutenant Wardlaw Ramsay secured a single specimen of 

 this bird at Corbyn's Cove, South Andaman, which he shot out 

 of a small, flock. None of us met with it during our stay at 

 the islands, but after our departure Captain Wimberley shot a 

 pair. 



952..— Dendrocygna arcuata, Cuv. (11.) 



This is the duck of the Nicobars, where it occurs in great 

 numbers. Nicobar specimens are identical with Indian ones. 



