f i l TOM U l l i « ,
Mçgapoclius nicobariensis, Blyíh.
Vernacular Names.
Catliorta.]
-[.Grouse, Peafowl, Pheasants ! (British barbarians)
' H E Nicobar Mcgapodc is only certainly known to
occur in the central and southern divisions of the group
of islands whence they derive their name.
We saw and shot them on every single island except
the three northernmost—Chowra, Batty Malve, and
Car Nicobar.
In no portion of the Andaman group have they yet
been traced, but at Table Island, at the north of the Great
Coco, there was some reason to think that they must have
occurred, though we could find none of them. In the first place
the lighthouse-keeper, a most intelligent European, described to
us brown hen-like birds with large legs and feet that he had
occasionally shot on the island. In the second place, we found
some little hillocks that might have been old mounds of this
species.
It is not unlikely that this species extends to the various
small islets of the north-west end of Sumatra, but this remains to
be proved.
T H E MEGAPODE never wanders far from the sea-shore, and
throughout the day it keeps in thickish jungle, a hundred yards or
so above high water 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 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 waters' edge, but during daylight they skulk in
the jungle.
They are to be met with in pairs, coveys, and flocks of from
thirty to fifty. They run with great rapidity and rise unwillingly,
running and flying just like jungle hens. They often call to
each other, and when a party has been surprised and dispersed,
they keep on talking to each other incessantly, half a dozen
cackling at the same time. The note is not unlike the chuck