8 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXI F. 



mark. It never, so far as I observed, emerged on to the open grass 

 hills that form so conspicuous a feature in so many of the Nicobars, but 

 throughout the day hugged the belt of the more or less dense jungle 

 that in most places, along the whole coast-line, supervenes abruptly on 

 the white coral beach. At dusk during moonlight nights, and in the 

 early dawn, glimpses may be caught of them running about on the shore 

 or even at the very water's edge, but during daylight they skulk in the 

 jungle. 



" They are to be met with in pairs, coveys, and flocks of from 30 to 

 50. They run with great rapidity, and rise unwillingly, running and 

 flying just like jungle hens. They often caU to each other, and when a 

 party has been surprised and dispersed, they keep on calling to each 

 other incessantly, half a dozen cackling to each other. The note is not 

 unlike the chuckling of a hen that has recently laid an egg, and is 

 anxious to publish the stupendous fact on nature's pages ; it may be 

 syllabled in a variety of ways, but several of us agreed that on the 

 whole ' Kuk-a-kuk-kuk' most nearly represented their chuckling, cack- 

 ling call. 



" The stomachs of all we examined contained tiny land shells, some- 

 times with the animals not yet dead, larvse of insects, dissolved matter, 

 apparently vegetables, and minute fragments and particles of quartz 

 and other hard rocks. 



" When by any chance you can get up to them they are easy to 

 shoot. They are most abundant where the soil is light and sandy, and 

 the ground at the bases of the magnificent trees that overshadow one 

 from above, is therefore comparatively penetrable, and in such localities, 

 with a few good dogs, they would aftbrd very pretty shooting. 



" As game they are unsurpassed. The flesh very white, very sweet 

 and juicy, loaded with fat is delicious, a sort of juste milieu between 

 that of a fat Norfolk Turkey and a fat Norfolk Pheasant. 



" The eggs, too, are quite equal if not superior to that of the Peafowl, 

 and to my mind higher commendation cannot be given." 

 A friend writing to me from the Andamans after liis first 

 uterview with these birds says : 



" To me they appear like large and very fat Barn-door Fowls with 



abnormally small heads compared to their heavy fat bodies, but even 



these latter were small in comparison to their powerful legs and huge 



feet. We found it diflicult to make them fly, though when they did do 



so, they went quite a decent pace as soon as they had got fairly started. 



Curiously enough some quite small chicks we saw were quicker away 



and actually faster on the wing than the full-grown bird. They all ran 



at a tremendous pace, heads and sterns held low, like a jungle-fowl on 



the run, but were even quicker than that bird." 



Davison, who saw more of these birds than anj^^one else, even 



Hume, never saw more than six birds in a flock, but one of the 



Convicts told him that he saw about thirty of them together on 



Trinkut. 



Sub-Order— TlL^OT'Oi^OPOD^/S. 



The principal external feature in which this sub-order differs 

 from the Peristoropodes consists in the hind toe being raised above 

 the other three in addition to which it is much shorter, its basal 

 phalanx being shorter than that of the middle or third toe. 



