78 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 



8. Heralda of the Monsoons. — ^The opening and closing of the 

 monsoons, about which there is always a great deal of discussion, 

 are occasionally demonstrated in an interesting manner, not by the 

 ordinary flights of migratory birds and other seasonal occurrences 

 in animal life, but by the stranding of birds, which have been 

 overcome by the rising or setting of the wind and have been blown 

 out of their course. 



On 23rd October, 1902, a gaudily coloured bird, about the size of 

 a thrush, drifted into the stable of my bungalow at Bambalapitiya, 

 and was caught by the horsekeeper. It was placed in a cage and 

 kept for a week, when it died without having become reconciled 

 to its captivity, although it devoured worms, grubs, and insects 

 greedily. It was obviously not a resident of the Island, and 

 proved to be an Indian Pitta or "yellow-breasted ground thrush," 

 Pitta hrachyura* a victim of the rising north-east wind. 



It is called by the onomatopoeic name " Avichchiya" in Sinhalese, 

 and is the subject of legends. It is a very common bird during 

 the north-east season, arriving in October in vast numbers, 

 according to Capt. Legge rather later than the Pintailed Snipe, 

 which is wont to appear in September. 



This year on 7th May a very rare and unwilling visitor was 

 blown ashore at Wellawatta in an exhausted condition, and was 

 brought to that hospital for sick birds, the Colombo Museum. 

 This was none other than a fine young female frigate bird 

 {Fregata aquila). This oceanic bird is a classical object not only 

 on account of its immense power of flight, the altitude to which 

 it soars, its occurrence far from land, and its piratical habits 

 (pursuing terns, boobies,] and gannets, and compelling them to 

 disgorge their food which it catches in mid-air), but also on 

 account of its ethnographic importance in the decorative art and 

 symbolism of the South Pacific Islanders.f 



Its power of flight is correlated with a great expanse of wing 

 and tail (about 6 ft. from tip to tip of the outstretched wings), 

 with a proportionate development of the pectoral muscles, which 

 are said to weigh nearly one-fourth of the entire weight of the bird 

 ( Bennett, G., •' Gatherings of a Naturalist in Australasia," 1860, p. 80), 

 aiid lastly, with a special rigidity of the sternal apparatus brought 

 about by the coalescence of the furcula with the keel of the 

 sternum behind and below, and with the coracoids in front and 

 above. 



* P. curonata (Legge, " Birds of Ueylou,'" p. 6ti7). 



t It is known to and venerated by the Melanesiana under the name " Daula " 

 (t/. Codrington, R. H., "'The Melanesians, their Anthropology and Folk-lore." 

 Clarendon Press. 1891.) 



