Birds in Southern Ceylon. 23 



whole troop would move off to another, and so on through 

 the jungle. A male from the central province measured 4'8", 

 and has a wing 2'3", while another from the Singha-Rajah 

 hills has a total length of 4-7" and a wing of 2*2" ; the females 

 are smaller and less dark on the forehead, having the wing 

 up to 2-1" in length. I traced Prionochilus vincens (Legge's 

 Flower-pecker) up to the same locality at an elevation of about 

 2500 feet ; so that this little novelty must now rank among 

 our Ai//-species. It was found much about the edges of clear- 

 ings in the forest, and affected, wherever it grew, the flowers 

 of the hill-species of Bowitteya [Osbeckia virgata) , a very com- 

 mon slu'ub throughout the island. It was evidently breeding 

 when I was there, in September, as the testes of one I pro- 

 cured were very much developed. The iris is more strictly 

 brownish red than " reddish," as I described it in my first 

 notice of the bird to Dr. Sclater. It is a remarkable fact, as 

 noticed also by Mr. Hugh Neville (Journ. R. A. S. (Ceylon), 

 1871, page 33), that Corvus splendens is entirely absent from 

 the south of Ceylon, where it is replaced abundantly by C. 

 culminatus in towns and villages as well as in the country. 

 Varus cinereus and Cissa ornata inhabit our hill-region. The 

 Jay is local in its distribution, being very numerous in some 

 forests of the Morowa and Colonna korles and entirely want- 

 in other tracts. As is the case with all our hill- species, and 

 which I wish especially to call attention to in this paper, it 

 descends to lower elevations in the southern than in the cen- 

 tral hills. I have seen it along the banks of the Gindurah at 

 about 1500 feet above the sea. 



Among Mynahs the abundance of jEM/aSe^re/i^iosfl! is some- 

 what noteworthy. It replaces Acridotheres tristis at about 

 ten miles inland, and is very common in forest- and also in 

 cultivated lands along the rivers of the interior. It ranges 

 up to about 1000 feet on the Gindurah. Far more remarkable, 

 however, is the abundance of Temenuchus senex, that most 

 local of all Ceylon birds, in the Morowa-Korle and Singha- 

 Rajah ranges. Unlike its nearest ally in Ceylon, Temenuchus 

 pagodarmn (so abundant in the Hambantotta districts), it is 

 strictlv arboreal in its habits. I first met with it in the 



