240 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVII. 



occur, both times in the same locality and at about 8 p.m. It was, however, 

 after the heavy showers of the hot weather. The flies were slightly smaller 

 than the common blue bottle fly and had dull redheads. 



H. R.G. HASTED. 



Narsipatam, Vizagapatam, 

 Uh December 1905. 



No. XIX —MANGROVES AND PAROQUETS. 



In the common mangrove (Rhizophora mucronata) of the sheltered shores 

 and tidal creeks in the Andamans, one may sometimes notice a patch of an 

 acre or so in extent, in which all the mangroves are apparently dead at the top, 

 or in other words " stag-headed. " Such patches are usually more or less 

 isolated from the main shore by shallow water. Various reasons, all more 

 or less unsatisfactory, have been adduced to attempt to explain what appeared 

 to denote an unhealthy condition, and it has been quoted in support of the 

 theory that the Andaman Islands are slowly undergoing subsidence. The 

 true explanation is, however, far simpler. 



Coming home late one evening I noticed that thousands of paroquets were 

 settling down for the night in one of the above patches and it struck me 

 as rather a peculiar coincidence that they should have selected this peculiar 

 patch of mangrove in preference to others apparently equally suitable for 

 roosting purposes. 



I visited the place again a few days later just after sun-down and found, 

 as before, myriads of paroquets coming in from all points of the compass to 

 what was evidently their regular roosting place. I slid my canoe quietly 

 in among the mangroves and having climbed up one of them to near the top, 

 where I was fairly well screened by leaves, awaited developments. The birds 

 had been alarmed at my approach and had risen into the air in a vast cloud 

 with a roar of wings resembling the breaking of a huge wave on the shore. 

 They soon returned however, and in less than a minute were dropping into 

 the trees all round me, and some in the tree in which I stood concealed, 

 within a couple of feet of my face. I remained motionless and they did not 

 seem to notice my presence. I had suspected that possibly the birds were 

 responsible for this leafless and apparently stag-headed condition and it was 

 therefore with considerable satisfaction that I noticed some of the paroquets 

 busy stripping off the leaves with their beaks. On a close examination, more- 

 over, it was evident that the upper branches were not dead but merely leafless. 

 The paroquets roosting in this patch were Palceornis magnirostris and P.fas- 

 ciatus, the former more predominating. 



B. B. OSMASTON, I.F.S. 

 Poet Blair, 

 Andaman Island3, 12lh December 1905. 



