We got four more megapodes on February 1, one of them containing an unbroken egg of a size remarkable for so small a bird; it measured 3-3/8 inches by 2-3/16 inches.[30] The shell is very thick, and when new of a pinkish colour, which changes in the earth to a dirty buff. The temperature of a nest-mound, which we dug into without success in a search for eggs, rapidly increased towards the centre: it was composed of light sandy soil, with apparently no addition of leaves or grass other than that lying about on the earth employed by the birds; the species does not seem purposely to include vegetable matter for causing heat by fermentation. We failed, whilst here, to obtain a single specimen of a rat; the island is much cut up with holes, high and low, but they are those of crabs, who here also--as on Barren Island and in Kar Nicobar--made off with our baits, leaving behind in some of the traps a quarry we did not at all desire. The only mammal obtained was a large fruit-bat (_Pteropus nicobaricus_), of which Abbott found a camp up the stream and shot several for specimens. Tracks of pig were seen. The island is uninhabited, and seems to have been in the same state for some time. In Hamilton's _Voyages_ some account is given of the adventures of a shipwrecked crew, whose vessel, commanded by a Captain Owen, was lost there in 1708. They found the place unpeopled, and, making fires in the night, were taken off by several canoes that came across from the Nankauri group. Their further adventures, although more properly appertaining to the history of the central islands of the Nicobars, may as well, for the sake of continuity, be given here. "The natives," writes Hamilton, "... very courteously carried the shipwrecked men to their islands of Ning and Goury, with what little things they had saved of their apparel and other necessaries. "The captain had saved a broken knife about four inches long in the blade, and he having laid it carelessly by, one of the natives made bold to take it, but did not offer to hide it. The captain, finding his knife in the poor native's hand, took it from him and bestowed some kicks and blows on him for his ill manners, which were taken very ill, for all in general showed they were dissatisfied with the action; and the shipwrecked men could observe contention arising among those who were their benefactors in bringing them to the island, and others who were not concerned in it: however, next day, as the captain was sitting under a tree at dinner, there came about a dozen of the natives towards him and saluted him with a shower of darts made of heavy wood, with their points hardened in the fire, and so he expired in a moment.