head round with a snarl and a snap, and instantly
the bone was gone. The crows about Colombo
assemble every evening in noisy groups round
the adjacent fresh water lake to bathe for an
hour or two before retiring for the night.

Of the number of the parroquets in Ceylon
Mr. Edgar Layard gives us this idea: "At
Chilaw," he says, "I have seen such vast flights
of parroquets coming to roost in the cocoa-nut
trees which overhang the bazaar, that their noise
drowned the Babel of tongues bargaining for the
evening provisions. Hearing of the swarms
which resorted to this spot, I posted myself on
a bridge some half mile distant, and attempted
to count the flocks which came from a single
direction to the eastward. About four o'clock
in the afternoon, straggling parties began to
wend towards home, and in the course of half
an hour the current fairly set in. But I soon
found that I had no longer distinct flocks to
count, it became one living screaming stream.
Some flew high in the air till right above their
homes, and dived abruptly downward with many
evolutions till on a level with the trees; others
kept along the ground and dashed close by my
face with the rapidity of thought, their brilliant
plumage shining with an exquisite lustre in the
sunlight. I waited on the spot till the evening
cloud, when I could hear, though no longer
distinguish, the birds fighting for their perches,
and on firing a shot they rose with a noise like
the 'rushing of a mighty wind,' but soon settled
again, and such a din commenced as I shall
never forget; the shrill screams of the birds,
the fluttering of their innumerable wings, and
the rustling of the leaves of the palm-trees, were
almost deafening, and I was glad at last to
escape to the Government Rest House."

On the other hand, among the dozen sorts of
Ceylon pigeons and doves, is one with a note so
opposite to that of the parroquet or the devil
bird, that a gentleman who has spent many
years in the jungle declares its soft and
melancholy notes, coming from some solitary place in
the forest, to be the most gentle sounds he ever
listened to. Some assert that it makes them
feel as if they could freely forgive all who had
ever offended them, and, adds this witness, "I
can say with truth such has been the effect on
my own nerves of the plaintive murmurs of the
neela cobeya, that sometimes, when irritated,
and not without reason, by the perverseness of
some of my native followers, the feeling has
almost instantly subsided into placidity on
suddenly hearing the loving tones of these beautiful
birds." Can these birds be imported, caged, for
sale as New-Year gifts to the irascible?

On the marshy plains, and in the lagoons
bordering the island, endless multitudes of stilt
birds and waders, stand in long array within the
wash of the water, or sweep in vast clouds above
it. Ibises, storks, egrets, spoonbills, herons, and
the smaller races of sandlarks and plovers,
busily traverse the wet sands. Long files of the
tall, rose-plumaged flamingoes—English soldierbirds
as the Singhalese call them—line the
beach; and at the mouths of rivers, are the pelicans.
The flamingo bending its long neck to
reach the bottom of the water, feeds with its
head and beak turned upside down. The beak
is specially adapted to this way of feeding. It
is the upper mandible that is flat.

In the next place we may note the variety and
beauty of the lizards on this island, which the
Brahmins have called Lanka, the Resplendent;
which the Buddhist poets describe as "a pearl
on the brow of India;" which was known to
the Chinese as the Island of Jewels, to the
Greeks as the land of the hyacinth and ruby,
and to the Mahometans as the new elysium with
which our first parents were consoled for the
loss of Paradise. There is the large iguana,
four or five feet long, harmless and eatable.
There is the chameleon hunting insects in the
trees, blushing all colours of the rainbow, and,
because of the imperfect sympathy between the
two lobes of the brain, having two sides not
bound to act in concert with each other. One
side appears, perhaps, to sleep while the other
side is watchful, one side will change to a green
colour while the other perhaps remains red.
The tree frogs have also in a high degree this
power of changing colour. There are the
friendly geckoes which, by help of padded toes,
can run up walls like a fly, climb glass and cross
the ceiling. They come into the house out of
their chinks at night. "In a boudoir," says Sir
Emerson Tennent, "where the ladies of my
family spent their evenings, one of these familiar
and amusing little creatures had its hiding-place
behind a gilt picture-frame, and punctually as
the candles were lighted, it made its appearance
on the wall to be fed with its accustomed crumb;
and, if neglected, it reiterated its sharp, quick
call of chic, chic, chit, till attended to. It was
of a delicate grey colour, tinged with pink; and
having by accident fallen on a work-table, it fled,
leaving its tail behind it, which, however, it
reproduced withing less than a month. . . . In an
officer's quarters in the fort of Colombo, a geckoe
had been taught to come daily to the dinner-
table, and always made its appearance along with
the dessert. The family were absent for some
months, during which the house underwent
extensive repairs, the roof having been raised, the
walls stuccoed and ceilings whitened. But on
the return of its old friends, at their first dinner,
the little lizard made its entrance as usual the
instant the cloth had been removed."

From the geckoe to the crocodile. Crocodiles
swarm in the still waters and tanks of the
northern provinces of the island. There are two
sorts, the great Indian crocodile and the marsh
crocodile, which seldom exceeds the length of
twelve or thirteen feet. These creatures, in
time of drought, bury themselves in the mud and
remain torpid until the return of rain. An
officer attached to the department of the
Surveyor-General, pitched his tent one evening on
the parched bed of a tank. He was disturbed
in the night by feeling a movement underneath
his bed. Next day, a crocodile came up beneath
the matting. A pool seen to contain twenty or
thirty crocodiles was dragged for them in what