344 Mr. F. Lewis on the Land-birds of 



as day, and so I could see all round me with perfect dis- 

 tinctness. I looked about, expecting each moraeut to find a 

 dead body, when presently I heard a few feet from me a 

 deep hiss, followed by a chuckling sort of laugh, and this 

 again succeeded by a gurgling sort of sob. Then followed a 

 deep and melancholy wail, ending in something like a scream. 

 I stood perfectly still, but very uncomfortable, till I saw 

 just a little above me a large Owl, in the full pure 

 light of the moon, moving its body and puffing out its 

 feathers as each cry followed the last. A movement on my 

 part soon stopped all further sound, and the bird slowly 

 assumed a more dignified attitude. The close bold barring 

 on the feathers could be clearly seen in the moonlight, and 

 the dead silence that followed the bird^s noticing me within 

 a few paces of it make it certain that this bird was the cause 

 of the fearful sounds I heard, and which it — perhaps unfortu- 

 ■ nately — did not repeat. So soon as I moved it flew off" with 

 a slow, noiseless flight, and I heard no more. My second 

 experience was much the same, except that on this occasion 

 the bird was seated on a stump of a fallen tree, and it Avas 

 startled by me before it got much beyond the overture of its 

 dreadful opera. 



This is a resident species, affecting the wet forests up to 

 the highest ranges. I obtained a chick and reared it up to a 

 full-sized bii'd ; but all the time I had it I never heard it 

 produce any sound but a hiss, or at times a contented sort of 

 chuckle when I gave it its food. The general belief among 

 the Singalese is that this bird cries only when there is a 

 death, but they fail to perceive that if such was the case the 

 bird would be pretty generally employed ! 



21. Phodilus assimilis (Legge, B. of C. p. 161, pi. v. 

 fig. 2). 



A very rare resident species, indigenous to the country. 

 I have obtained it from the forests bordering the wet zone 

 in the Balangoda district, and it has again been procured 

 in the wet forests of the Kukulu Korah section of the 

 province. It is also recorded from Kaduganawa, near 



