988 JOUBNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XKVIU. 
them one of the most conspicuous objects of the reef. Large Actinians, Discoso- 
ma, of a brown colom, were growing in the shallow pools attached to dead masses- 
of coral, and scattered about were masses of a compound actinian of a grey- 
white colour. Each of these serves as a shelter for other animals. The brown sea- 
anenome harbours among its tentacles a little brown fish, AmpMprion acallopis- 
ius, while the white form serves as a habitat for small crabs and alpheids. Living 
in holes among the coral debris were a number of sea-urchins w-ith long delicate 
spines, and numerous little gaudy-coloured fish -were swimming about in the 
coral pools. Crabs were far more common here than among the stag-hom corals 
and one or two large starfish w'ere obtained near the edge of the reef. 
Again in Octavia Bay on the north side there is a patch of reef that consists 
for the most part of rounded masses of Porites overgrown with dense masses of a 
pale leathery alcyonarian. Anderson f calls attention to a similar area on the 
south side of Nankauri Harbour w^here the reef w'as characterised by the jjre- 
sence of digitate Alcyonacece of at least two species. Li these colonies the stocks 
are 1-2 feet in diameter and the figures 1 foot in length. 
In a small bay on the w'estern side of Camorta, just north of the entrance to 
Expedition Harbour, there is a small patch of coral consisting entirely of a colony 
of Turbinaria, of a yellow colour and with flattened plate-like outgrow'ths set 
more or less parallel to the sea-bottom. It was here that one afternoon I obtained 
a fine specimen of the poisonous fish Synancaea verrucosa. I w^as examining a 
smalt rock and coral pool in the centre of which was a yellowish mass which I at 
first took to be a lump of coral overgrowm with patches of algae. After a minute 
or two it began to dawn on me that the motionless object was a large fish- — and 
so it proved to be ! 
I do not propose to go into details regarding the causes of these local variations- 
in the type of coral met with on the reefs, and I would refer anyone who is in- 
terested in the subject to Wood- Jones, J work on the Coral reefs of the Cocos- 
KeelLng Islands. 
I have already referred to the comparative paucity of bird life in these islands 
but one would expect to find that islands such as these, situated 
well out in the ocean, would have a considerable population of sea- 
birds such as gulls and terns. One species of tern, Sterna melanau- 
cken, is said to breed in the Andamans and Nicobars, but during the whole of our 
stay in the vicinity I never saw a single example ; and on only a single occasion 
did I see any gulls. We w'ere steaming down the west coast of Carmorta and near 
the north end of the island in the distance were three gulls and those were all 
that I saw' during five months. Every day one could see at some part or another 
of Nankauri Harbour examples of the fine white-bellied sea-eagle, Halia-hts 
leucogaster, soaring over the foreshore and occasionally swooping down on to some 
object below'. One pair were alw'ays present over the beach near Naval Point 
though I never could discover where they were nesting. Curlew, whimbrel and 
reef herons were ahvays to be seen, though never in large numbers, searching 
for food on the reef at low water but true sea-birds were invariably absent. 
In a paper as short and of necessity as discursive as the above 
one cannot hope to do even the merest justice to a locality' as in- 
teresting as the Nicobar Islands, nor have I attempted to touch 
upon the many interesting problems in evolution and distribution 
that confront a zoologist who essays to deal with the fauna. Separa- 
ted as these islands have been through long ages from the rest of the Burma- 
Malayan Peninsula and from one another it is only to be expected that new species 
have arisen. Li recent years a number of these have been recognised and describ- 
t Anderson., Census of India, 1901, “The Andamans and Nicobars,” Vol. Ill, 
p. 164, Calcutta, 1903. 
J F. Wood-Jones, “ Coral and Atolls)” London, 1912. 
