448 THE LACCADIVES AND THE WEST COAST. 
body insisted upon a close inspection of the wonderful gun 
that could do this sort of thing. I did not observe that I got 
any credit for my good shooting, it was all the wonderful gun, 
such a gun! and at least a dozen gentlemen at once signified 
their willingness to accept it, if I would only kindly supply 
them with plenty of ammunition. 
At last every one was persuaded to allow us to continue 
shooting. We got a good number of Plovers, and then a lot 
of the boys and men took us to all the places about the island 
where birds were ever seen, and before we had finished, assured 
us that they never saw any other birds besides those they had 
shewn us. This of course must be accepted cum grano, but I 
think I may safely assert that there were no other species at 
that time on or about the island. All the species we saw were 
a single White-Bellied Eagle soaring above the island, a chance 
visitor, as the people said they had never seen one like it before, 
a female Peregrine, a Black-winged Kite (Hlanus melanopterus), 
several Whimbrel, several Koil, a few Turnstones, and common 
Sandpipers and a couple of Pond Herons (A. Grayi). These with 
the Crows, Plovers, and White Eyed Tits constituted the entire 
avi fauna of the island, save only of course the pair of Govern- 
ment Owls whose sanctity we religiously respected. 
The people of this island appeared to me an extremely sociable, 
good tempered, intelligent lot, and as the Native Doctor of the 
place (who talked English and Malayalum fluently, had resided 
sometime in the island and enjoyed the confidence of the in- 
habitants,) accompanied us from sunrise to sunset interpreting 
whenever we were at fault, we got on famously with them, and 
collected without the least difficulty every possible kind of 
information. 
Early in the morning I expressed a»wish for some Turtle and 
any good shells that they could find, and by the afternoon 
about a dozen edible Turtles weighing from 30 to 50 or 60 lbs each, 
(Chelonia virgata), and a number of fine King Conks ( Cassis rufa) 
a couple of very handsome Tritons, and several beautiful red 
Mitres (Mitra episcopalis) were brought, together with vegetables 
and other things for which the islanders were with great diffi- 
culty prevailed on to accept a small payment. 
The Turtles had not been speared as they always are at the 
Andamans, and when I asked how they had been captured, the 
men said that they jumped into the water where it was not 
above 6 to 8 feet deep, and seized them with their hands. I con- 
fess I hardly credited this, so I had the biggest Turtle, a very live- 
ly and energetic party popped into the largest fresh water tank in 
the place in which the water was quite muddy and fully seven 
feet deep. The moment the Turtle touched the water he darted 
