Birds in Southern Ceylon. 27 



our list of the avifauna. Many of the Ardeidse are universally 

 distributed throughout Ceylon, being found wherever there 

 is the smallest piece of marsh or " paddy " land, and must be 

 in consequence considered an exception to the well-marked 

 absence of their congeners from this part. Bordering the 

 Gindurah river, in the neighbourhood of the villages of 

 Wackwelle and Boddegamme, and extending thence to a dis- 

 tance of some twenty-five miles from the sea, are large tracts 

 of paddy- and open grass-land, which, of course, harbour a 

 number of Snipes in the season, and about which large flocks 

 of Golden Plovers are found in rainy weather. The district 

 of Matura, the southernmost part of the island, contains much 

 in common with this division of the province : the Whistling 

 Teal [Dendrocygna javanica) is numerous there, and breeds 

 in June and July in marshy deserted " paddy " fields ; and I 

 am informed that the large Wild Duck [Anas poecilorhyncha) 

 is found sometimes on the river Nivvalle, which flows into the 

 sea near the town of Matura. There are several large brackish 

 lagoons connected with the sea and lying some little distance 

 inland along the coast-line from Bentotte, thirty miles north 

 of Galle, to Matura, about the same distance to the south- 

 east ; but these are singularly devoid of bird-life. The shores, 

 instead of being flat, are lined with mangrove-thickets ; and 

 the waters are not tidal ; so that there is almost a total absence 

 of Totani and Tringce ; a few Herons, among which Nycti- 

 corax griseus predominates in some places, are the sole deni- 

 zens of the borders of these lakes. The waters being brackish 

 harbour scarcely any wild fowl, a stray Cormorant or two, 

 Gracidus juv aniens, being about the only form to be seen in 

 a day's trip. The Charadriidse of this part of the island are 

 Ch. fulvus, ^gialites mongolicus, and LobivaneUus goensis. 

 The first of these is the most abundant, arriving in Sep- 

 tember a little before the Snipe, and departing later, as far 

 into the breeding-season as the first week in May. In the 

 north of Ceylon, I should say, many birds while passing to high 

 latitudes ought to be procurable in full summer dress. In 

 this district, as early as the 29th of April, I have procured 

 them with the white forehead and neck-bordering, and the 



