Birds in Southern Ceylon. 25 



feathers of the breast have the centres greyish white^ with 

 a broad margin only of neutral grey, the white shafts show- 

 *ing conspicuously on the chest, and not on the lower parts 

 as in the female. Our Hill-Mynah, Eulabes ptilogenys, is 

 extraordinarily numerous in the forests of the Kookool Korle, 

 and in parts of the Morowa Korle, and is found as low as 

 1500 feet. 



There is nothing much to note with regard to the dis- 

 tribution of the Fringillidse in our province, except that 

 Munia ruhronigra does not appear to exist here at all. 

 Layard records it from Galle ; but he surely could not have 

 mistaken it for M. malacca, which is common in the heart 

 of the many paddy-districts of the interior and nowhere 

 else in Ceylon that I have visited. M. malaharica is an Indian 

 bird in its tastes, liking a dry climate, such as the south-east 

 coast and northern parts of the island. It is quite absent 

 from our hill- district. I have now and then seen an isolated 

 example of Estrelda amandava on the grass-land close to the 

 Eort ; the bird has in all probability become acclimatized here 

 as at Colombo, by escaping from cages brought here from 

 Bengal. Alauda gidgula is rare in this district, preferring, 

 in company with all the peninsular birds found in the island, 

 that remarkably Indo-Ceylonese region, the south-east coast. 

 Of Columbse, the fine Carpophaga sylvatica, with its wonder- 

 ful deep note, is plentiful in hill-jungles and forests when its 

 favourite trees are in fruit. Palumbus torringtonice inhabits 

 the hills, as it does in the central province. The wing-coverts 

 in the immature bird are edged rusty. Osmotreron bicincta 

 is numerous in the maritime districts, extending inland to the 

 lower hills, where it is replaced from there up to the spurs 

 of the Singha-Rajah and Morowa-Korle hills by Osmotreron 

 jiavogularis, Blytli ; the soft melodious whistle of this species 

 is one of the most beautiful of all eastern bird-notes. The 

 under tail-coverts in all specimens I have procured (it is very 

 numerous also in the eastern province) have not sufficient 

 green to warrant the feathers being described as such ; those 

 I have examined are Avhite, the shorter feathers margined with 

 faint yellow mottled or irregularly patched with greyish green 



