Bibliographical Notice* 453 



the baked and cloven earth, and red dust settles on the branches of 

 the thirsty brushwood. The insects, deprived of their accustomed 

 food, disappear under ground or hide beneath the decaying bark ; 

 the water-beetles bury themselves in the hardened mud of the pools ; 

 and the Helices retire into the crevices of the stones or the hollows 

 amongst the roots of the trees, closing the apertures of their shells 

 with the hybernating epiphragm. Butterflies are no longer seen 

 hovering over the flowers, the birds appear fewer and less joyous, 

 and the wild animals and crocodiles, driven by the drought from 

 their accustomed retreats, wander through the jungle, and even ven- 

 ture to approach the village wells in search of water. Man equally 

 languishes under the general exhaustion ; ordinary exertion becomes 

 distasteful ; and the native Singhalese, although inured to the climate, 

 move with lassitude and reluctance. 



*' Meanwhile the air becomes loaded to saturation with aqueous 

 vapour drawn up by the augmented force of evaporation acting 

 vigorously over land and sea : the sky, instead of its brilliant blue, 

 assumes the sullen tint of lead, and not a breath disturbs the motion- 

 less rest of the clouds that hang on the lower range of hills. At 

 length, generally about the middle of the month, but frequently 



earlier, the sultry suspense is broken by the wished-for change 



As the monsoon draws near, the days become more overcast and hot; 

 banks of clouds rise over the ocean to the west ; and, in the peculiar 

 twilight, the eye is attracted by the unusual whiteness of the sea-birds 

 that sweep along the strand to seize the objects flung ashore by the 

 rising surf. At last the sudden lightnings flash among the hills, and 

 shoot through the clouds that overhang the sea — and, with a crash 

 of thunder, the monsoon bursts over the thirsty land, not in showers 

 or partial torrents, but in a wide deluge, that in the course of a few 

 hours overtops the river bauks and spreads in inundations over every 

 level plain." 



Snow is unknown in Ceylon ; hail occasionally falls in the Kan- 

 dyan hills; and in 1852 the hail which thus fell was of such size 

 that half-a-dozen lumps would fill a tumbler. " In shape they were 

 oval and compressed, but the mass appeared to have formed a 

 hexagonal pyramid, the base of which was two inches in diameter 

 and about half an inch thick, gradually thinning towards the edge. 

 They were tolerably solid internally, each containing about the size 

 of a pea of clear ice in the centre, but the sides and angles were 

 spongy and flocculent, as if the particles had been driven together 

 by the force of the wind, and had coalesced at the instant of 

 contact." 



" A curious phsenomenon, to which the name of ' anthelia' has been 

 given, is to be seen in singular beauty at early morning in Ceylon. 

 When the hght is intense, and the shadows proportionally dark — 

 when the sun is near the horizon, and the shadow of a person walk- 

 ing is thrown upon the dewy grass — each particle furnishes a double 

 reflexion from its concave and convex surfaces, and to the spectator 

 his own figure, but more particularly his head, appears surrounded 

 by a halo as vivid as if radiated from diamonds." Scoresby describes 

 the occurrence of a similar phsenomenon in the arctic sea§, 



